(Poem #84)Happiness Why, Dot asks, stuck in the back seat of her sister's two-door, her freckled hand feeling the roof for the right spot to pull her wide self up onto her left, the unarthritic, ankle—why does her sister, coaching outside on her cane, have to make her laugh so, she flops back just as she was, though now looking wistfully out through the restaurant reflected in her back window, she seems bigger, and couldn't possibly mean we should go ahead in without her, she'll be all right, and so when you finally place the pillow behind her back and lift her right out into the sunshine, all four of us are happy, none more than she, who straightens the blossoms on her blouse, says how nice it is to get out once in a while, and then goes in to eat with the greatest delicacy (oh I could never finish all that) and aplomb the complete roast beef dinner with apple crisp and ice cream, just a small scoop. |
Happiness -- Wesley McNair
Happiness -- Raymond Carver
(Poem #83)Happiness So early it's still almost dark out. I'm near the window with coffee, and the usual early morning stuff that passes for thought. When I see the boy and his friend walking up the road to deliver the newspaper. They wear caps and sweaters, and one boy has a bag over his shoulder. They are so happy they aren't saying anything, these boys. I think if they could, they would take each other's arm. It's early in the morning, and they are doing this thing together. They come on, slowly. The sky is taking on light, though the moon still hangs pale over the water. Such beauty that for a minute death and ambition, even love, doesn't enter into this. Happiness. It comes on unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really, any early morning talk about it. |
I Say I Say I Say -- Simon Armitage
(Poem #82)I Say I Say I Say Anyone here had a go at themselves for a laugh? Anyone opened their wrists with a blade in the bath? Those in the dark at the back, listen hard. Those at the front in the know, those of us who have, hands up, let's show that inch of lacerated skin between the forearm and the fist. Let's tell it like it is: strong drink, a crimson tidemark round the tub, a yard of lint, white towels washed a dozen times, still pink. Tough luck. A passion then for watches, bangles, cuffs. A likely story: you were lashed by brambles picking berries from the woods. Come clean, come good, repeat with me the punch line 'Just like blood' when those at the back rush forward to say how a little love goes a long long long way. |
My Star -- Robert Browning
(Poem #81)My Star All that I know
Of a certain star
Is, it can throw
(Like the angled spar)
Now a dart of red,
Now a dart of blue;
Till my friends have said
They would fain see, too,
My star that dartles the red and the blue!
Then it stops like a bird; like a flower hangs furled:
They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.
What matter to me if their star is a world?
Mine has opened its soul to me, therefore I love it.
|
The first dream -- Billy Collins
(Poem #80)The first dream The Wind is ghosting around the house tonight and as I lean against the door of sleep I begin to think about the first person to dream, how quiet he must have seemed the next morning as the others stood around the fire draped in the skins of animals talking to each other only in vowels, for this was long before the invention of consonants. He might have gone off by himself to sit on a rock and look into the mist of a lake as he tried to tell himself what had happened, how he had gone somewhere without going, how he had put his arms around the neck of a beast that the others could touch only after they had killed it with stones, how he felt its breath on his bare neck. Then again, the first dream could have come to a woman, though she would behave, I suppose, much the same way, moving off by herself to be alone near water, except that the curve of her young shoulders and the tilt of her downcast head would make her appear to be terribly alone, and if you were there to notice this, you might have gone down as the first person to ever fall in love with the sadness of another. |
Self-Portrait at Thirty-Nine -- Ted Kooser
(Poem #79)Self-Portrait at Thirty-Nine A barber is cutting the hair; his fingers, perfumed by a rainbow of bottled oils, blanket the head with soft, pink clouds. Through these, the green eyes, from their craters, peer. There's a grin lost somewhere in the folds of the face, with a fence of old teeth, broken and leaning, through which asides to the barber pounce catlike onto the air. This is a face which shows its age, has all of the coin it started with, with the look of having been counted too often. Oh, but I love my face! It is that hound of bronze who faithfully stands by the door to hold it open wide— on light, on water, on leafy streets where women pass it with a smile. Good dog, old face; good dog, good dog. |
Please Give This Seat To An Elderly Or Disabled Person -- Nina Cassian
(Poem #78)Please Give This Seat To An Elderly Or Disabled Person I stood during the entire journey: nobody offered me a seat although I was at least a hundred years older than anyone else on board, although the signs of at least three major afflictions were visible on me: Pride, Loneliness, and Art. |
The Player Piano -- Randall Jarrell
(Poem #77)The Player Piano I ate pancakes one night in a Pancake House Run by a lady my age. She was gay. When I told her that I came from Pasadena She laughed and said, "I lived in Pasadena When Fatty Arbuckle drove the El Molino bus." I felt that I had met someone from home. No, not Pasadena, Fatty Arbuckle. Who's that? Oh, something that we had in common Like -- like -- the false armistice. Piano rolls. She told me her house was the first Pancake House East of the Mississippi, and I showed her A picture of my grandson. Going home -- Home to the hotel -- I began to hum, "Smile a while, I bid you sad adieu, When the clouds roll back I'll come to you." Let's brush our hair before we go to bed, I say to the old friend who lives in my mirror. I remember how I'd brush my mother's hair Before she bobbed it. How long has it been Since I hit my funnybone? had a scab on my knee? Here are Mother and Father in a photograph, Father's holding me.... They both look so young. I'm so much older than they are. Look at them, Two babies with their baby. I don't blame you, You weren't old enough to know any better; If I could I'd go back, sit down by you both, And sign our true armistice: you weren't to blame. I shut my eyes and there's our living room. The piano's playing something by Chopin, And Mother and Father and their little girl Listen. Look, the keys go down by themselves! I go over, hold my hands out, play I play -- If only, somehow, I had learned to live! The three of us sit watching, as my waltz Plays itself out a half-inch from my fingers. |
The Psychiatrist Says She’s Severely Demented -- Bobbi Lurie
(Poem #76)The Psychiatrist Says She’s Severely Demented But she's my mother. She lies in her bed, Hi Sweetie, she says. Hi Mom. Do you know my name? I can't wait for her answer, I'm Bobbi. Oh, so you found me again, she says. Her face and hair have the same gray sheen Like a black and white drawing smudged on the edges. The bedspread is hot pink, lime green. Her eyes, Such a distant blue, indifferent as the sky. I put my hand On her forehead. It is soft, and she resembles my real mother Who I have not spoken to in so many years. I want to talk to her as her eyes close. She is mumbling something, laughing to herself, All the sadness she ever had has fled. And when she opens her eyes again, she stares through me And her eyes well up with tears. And I stand there lost in her incoherence, Which feels almost exactly like love. |
Overheard In An Asylum -- Alfred Kreymborg
(Poem #75)Overheard In An Asylum And here we have another case quite different from the last, another case quite different -- Listen. Baby, drink. The war is over. Mother's breasts are round with milk. Baby, rest. The war is over. Only pigs slop over so. Baby, sleep. The war is over. Daddy's come with a German coin. Baby, dream. The war is over. You'll be a soldier too. Yes, we gave her the doll -- Now there we have another case quite different from -- |
Wild Asters -- Sara Teasdale
(Poem #74)Wild Asters In the spring I asked the daisies If his words were true, And the clever, clear-eyed daisies Always knew. Now the fields are brown and barren, Bitter autumn blows, And of all the stupid asters Not one knows. |
Two Tanka -- Otomo No Yakamochi
(Poem #73)Two Tanka From outside my house, only the faint distant sound of gentle breezes wandering through bamboo leaves in the long evening silence. Late evening finally comes: I unlatch the door and quietly await the one who greets me in my dreams. |
Introduction To Poetry -- Billy Collins
(Poem #72)Introduction To Poetry I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the poem's room and feel the walls for a light switch. I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author's name on the shore. But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means. |
Men at the Gates -- Gary L. Lark
(Poem #71)Men at the Gates They wait at the gates in flannel shirts and heavy denim pants. They wait for the gates to open, the whistle to blow signaling change of shift. They wait for the mill jobs to come back, with wages that will feed a family, wages to be proud of. They wait in the parking lot where one-stop-shoppers now, twenty-five years later, look through them like ghosts. They wait in a rain of gadgets and plunder, companies from somewhere else picking their pockets trying to sell them everything they don't need at bargain prices. They wait for the world to make sense again, where calluses grow on your hands and the soreness in your back means you're worth a damn. |
The Former Miner Returns from His First Day as a Service Worker (at a McDonald's somewhere in Appalachia) -- Mark Defoe
(Poem #70)The Former Miner Returns from His First Day as a Service Worker (at a McDonald's somewhere in Appalachia) All day he crushed the spongy buns, pawed at The lids of burger boxes and kiddie pacs As if they were chinese puzzles. All day long his hands ticked, ready to latch on Or heave or curl around a tool Heavier than a spatula, All day he rubbed his eyes in the crisp light. All day the blue tile, the polished chrome, said Be nimble, be jolly, be quick. All day he grinned while the public, with bland Or befuddled faces, scowled over his head And mumbled, whispered, snarled, and snapped. All day his coworkers, pink and scrubbed, Prattled and glided and skipped while he, All bulk and balk, rumbled and banged. Near shift's end he daydreamed - of the clang Of rock on steel, the skreel Of a conveyer belt, the rattling whine Of the man-trip, the miner's growl of gears As if gnarled, toothing at the seam. He makes his slow way home, shadow among Roadside shadows, groping back in himself For that deep, sheltering dark. He has never been so tired. His hands have never been so clean. |
A Wreath To The Fish -- Nancy Willard
(Poem #69)A Wreath To The Fish Who is this fish, still wearing its wealth, flat on my drainboard, dead asleep, its suit of mail proof only against the stream? What is it to live in a stream, to dwell forever in a tunnel of cold, never to leave your shining birthsuit, never to spend your inheritance of thin coins? And who is the stream, who lolls all day in an unmade bed, living on nothing but weather, singing, a little mad in the head, opening her apron to shells, carcasses, crabs, eyeglasses, the lines of fisherman begging for news from the interior-oh, who are these lines that link a big sky to a small stream that go down for great things: the cold muscle of the trout, the shinning scrawl of the eel in a difficult passage, hooked-but who is this hook, this cunning and faithful fanatic who will not let go but holds the false bait and the true worm alike and tears the fish, yet gives it up to the basket in which it will ride to the kitchen of someone important, perhaps the Pope who rejoices that his cook has found such a fish and blesses it and eats it and rises, saying, "Children, what is it to live in the stream, day after day, and come at last to the table, transfigured with spices and herbs, a little martyr, a little miracle; children, children, who is this fish?" |
Love At First Sight -- Alan Ziegler
(Poem #68)Love At First Sight It was a novelty-store and he went in just for the novelty of it. She was in front of the counter, listening to the old proprietor say: "I have here one of those illusion paintings, a rare one. You either see a beautiful couple making love, or a skull. They say this one was used by Freud himself on his patients—if at first sight you see the couple, then you are a lover of life and love. But if you focus on the skull first, you're closely involved with death, and there's not much hope for you." With that, the proprietor unwrapped the painting. They both hesitated, looked at the picture, then at each other. They both saw the skull. And have been together ever since. |
Love At First Sight -- Jennifer Maier
(Poem #67)Love At First Sight You always hear about it— a waitress serves a man two eggs over easy and she says to the cashier, That is the man I'm going to marry, and she does. Or a man spies a woman at a baseball game; she is blond and wearing a blue headband, and, being a man, he doesn't say this or even think it, but his heart is a homing bird winging to her perch, and next thing you know they're building birdhouses in the garage. How do they know, these auspicious lovers? They are like passengers on a yellow bus painted with the dreams of innumerable lifetimes, a packet of sepia postcards in their pocket. And who's to say they haven't traveled backward for centuries through borderless lands, only to arrive at this roadside attraction where Chance meets Necessity and says, What time do you get off? |
Newsphoto: Basra, Collateral Damage -- Steve Kowit
(Poem #66)Newsphoto: Basra, Collateral Damage Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators. —General F.S. Maude, commander of the British colonial forces in Iraq, 1914 Apparently the little girl is dead. In Basra, bombed to rubble by the Yanks, her stricken father cradles her small head. Her right foot dangles, ghastly, by a thread. Cluster bombs & F-16s & tanks. That is to say the little girl is dead whose fingers curl (small hand brushed with blood) as if to clutch his larger hand. He drinks her—sobbing—in, & cradles her small head, & rocks her in his arms, the final bed but one in which she'll lie. The father clings, as if his broken daughter were not dead, her face, as if in sleep, becalmed, but red, bloodied, bruised. At bottom left, the ranks of those still dying die beneath her head. Legions of the Lords of Plunder: the dread angel of empire offers you thanks! Look, if you dare! See? The child is dead. Her stricken father cradles her small head. |
The Diameter of the Bomb -- Yehuda Amichai
(Poem #65)The Diameter of the Bomb The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters, with four dead and eleven wounded. And around these, in a larger circle of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered and one graveyard. But the young woman who was buried in the city she came from, at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers, enlarges the circle considerably, and the solitary man mourning her death at the distant shores of a country far across the sea includes the entire world in the circle. And I won’t even mention the crying of orphans that reaches up to the throne of God and beyond, making a circle with no end and no God. |
Morning -- Billy Collins
(Poem #64)Morning Why do we bother with the rest of the day, the swale of the afternoon, the sudden dip into evening, then night with his notorious perfumes, his many-pointed stars? This is the best— throwing off the light covers, feet on the cold floor, and buzzing around the house on espresso— maybe a splash of water on the face, a palmful of vitamins— but mostly buzzing around the house on espresso, dictionary and atlas open on the rug, the typewriter waiting for the key of the head, a cello on the radio, and if necessary, the windows— trees fifty, a hundred years old out there, heavy clouds on the way and the lawn steaming like a horse in the early morning. |
Television -- Roald Dahl
(Poem #63)Television The most important thing we've learned, So far as children are concerned, Is never, NEVER, NEVER let Them near your television set -- Or better still, just don't install The idiotic thing at all. In almost every house we've been, We've watched them gaping at the screen. They loll and slop and lounge about, And stare until their eyes pop out. (Last week in someone's place we saw A dozen eyeballs on the floor.) They sit and stare and stare and sit Until they're hypnotised by it, Until they're absolutely drunk With all that shocking ghastly junk. Oh yes, we know it keeps them still, They don't climb out the window sill, They never fight or kick or punch, They leave you free to cook the lunch And wash the dishes in the sink -- But did you ever stop to think, To wonder just exactly what This does to your beloved tot? IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD! IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD! IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND! IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND! HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE! HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE! HE CANNOT THINK -- HE ONLY SEES! 'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say, 'But if we take the set away, What shall we do to entertain Our darling children? Please explain!' We'll answer this by asking you, 'What used the darling ones to do? 'How used they keep themselves contented Before this monster was invented?' Have you forgotten? Don't you know? We'll say it very loud and slow: THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ, AND READ and READ, and then proceed To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks! One half their lives was reading books! The nursery shelves held books galore! Books cluttered up the nursery floor! And in the bedroom, by the bed, More books were waiting to be read! Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales And treasure isles, and distant shores Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars, And pirates wearing purple pants, And sailing ships and elephants, And cannibals crouching 'round the pot, Stirring away at something hot. (It smells so good, what can it be? Good gracious, it's Penelope.) The younger ones had Beatrix Potter With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter, And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland, And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and- Just How The Camel Got His Hump, And How the Monkey Lost His Rump, And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul, There's Mr. Rate and Mr. Mole- Oh, books, what books they used to know, Those children living long ago! So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, Go throw your TV set away, And in its place you can install A lovely bookshelf on the wall. Then fill the shelves with lots of books, Ignoring all the dirty looks, The screams and yells, the bites and kicks, And children hitting you with sticks- Fear not, because we promise you That, in about a week or two Of having nothing else to do, They'll now begin to feel the need Of having something to read. And once they start -- oh boy, oh boy! You watch the slowly growing joy That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen They'll wonder what they'd ever seen In that ridiculous machine, That nauseating, foul, unclean, Repulsive television screen! And later, each and every kid Will love you more for what you did. |
And the Word -- Richard Jones
(Poem #62)And the Word I find things inside books borrowed from the library— foreign postcards, rose petals, opera tickets, laundry lists, and, once, a bloody piece of cloth. Today, inside a volume of Cid Corman's elegant poetry, a snapshot— a man in a dark nightclub embracing a red-haired stripper. The man grabs the woman brashly about her waist, displaying her nakedness to the camera. The flash illumines the man's flushed face, his single-minded lust as he bends to touch his tongue to her nipple, while she, arching her back, coolly turns to the camera, her face flooded with light, as if asking, "So, what do you think about the book you're reading now?" |
suppose -- e e cummings
(Poem #61)suppose suppose
Life is an old man carrying flowers on his head.
young death sits in a café
smiling,a piece of money held between
his thumb and first finger
(i say "will he buy flowers" to you
and "Death is young
life wears velour trousers
life totters, life has a beard" i
say to you who are silent. - "Do you see
Life? he is there and here,
or that, or this
or nothing or an old man 3 thirds
asleep, on his head
flowers, always crying
to nobody something about les
roses les bluets
yes,
will He buy?
Les belles bottes - oh hear
, pas chères")
and my love slowly answered I think so. But
I think I see someone else
there is a lady,whose name is Afterwards
she is sitting beside young death,is slender;
likes flowers.
|
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised -- Gil Scott-Heron
(Poem #60)The Revolution Will Not Be Televised You will not be able to stay home, brother. You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out. You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip, Skip out for beer during commercials, Because the revolution will not be televised. The revolution will not be televised. The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox In 4 parts without commercial interruptions. The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary. The revolution will not be televised. The revolution will not be brought to you by the Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia. The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal. The revolution will not get rid of the nubs. The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother. There will be no pictures of you and Willie May pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run, or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance. NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32 or report from 29 districts. The revolution will not be televised. There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers in the instant replay. There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers in the instant replay. There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process. There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving For just the proper occasion. Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and women will not care if Dick finally gets down with Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people will be in the street looking for a brighter day. The revolution will not be televised. There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock news and no pictures of hairy armed women liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose. The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb, Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdinck, or the Rare Earth. The revolution will not be televised. The revolution will not be right back after a message About a white tornado, white lightning, or white people. You will not have to worry about a dove in your bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl. The revolution will not go better with Coke. The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath. The revolution WILL put you in the driver's seat. The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised, will not be televised, will not be televised. The revolution will be no re-run brothers; The revolution will be live. |
Autumn -- Rainer Maria Rilke
(Poem #58)Autumn Lord: it is time. The huge summer has gone by. Now overlap the sundials with your shadows, and on the meadows let the wind go free. Command the fruits to swell on tree and vine; grant them a few more warm transparent days, urge them on to fulfillment then, and press the final sweetness into the heavy wine. Whoever has no house now, will never have one. Whoever is alone will stay alone, will sit, read, write long letters through the evening, and wander along the boulevards, up and down, restlessly, while the dry leaves are blowing. |
The Scars of Utopia -- Jeffrey McDaniel
(Poem #57)The Scars of Utopia If you keep taking stabs at utopia sooner or later there will be scars.Suppose there was a thermometer able to measure contentment. Would you slide it under your tongue and risk being told you were on par with a thirteenth century farmer who lost all his teeth in a game of hide and seek? Would you be tempted to abandon your portable conscience, the remote control that lets you choose who you are for every occasion? I wish we cared more about how we sounded than how we looked. Instead of primping before mirrors each morning, we’d huddle in echo chambers, practicing our scales. As a kid, I thought the local amputee was dying in pieces, that his left arm was leaning against a tree in heaven, waiting for the rest of him to arrive, as if God was dismantling him like a jigsaw puzzle, but now I understand we’re all missing something. I wish there were Band Aids for what you don’t know, whisky breath mints for sober people to fit in at wild parties. There ought to be a Smithsonian for misfits, where an insomniac’s clammy pillow hangs over a narcoleptic’s drool cup, the teeth of an anorexic displayed like a white picket fence designed to keep food from trespassing. I wish the White House was made out of mood ring rock, reflecting the health of the nation. And an atheist hour at every church, and needle exchange programs, and haystack exchange programs too, and emotional baggage thrift stores, a Mount Rushmore for assassins. I’m sick of strip malls and billboards. I dream of a road lit by people who set themselves on fire, no asphalt, no rest stops, just a bunch of dead grass with footprints so deep, like a track meet in wet cement. |
Let Me Die a Youngman's Death -- Roger McGough
(Poem #56)Let Me Die a Youngman's Death Let me die a youngman's death not a clean and inbetween the sheets holywater death not a famous-last-words peaceful out of breath death When I'm 73 and in constant good tumour may I be mown down at dawn by a bright red sports car on my way home from an allnight party Or when I'm 91 with silver hair and sitting in a barber's chair may rival gangsters with hamfisted tommyguns burst in and give me a short back and insides Or when I'm 104 and banned from the Cavern may my mistress catching me in bed with her daughter and fearing for her son cut me up into little pieces and throw away every piece but one Let me die a youngman's death not a free from sin tiptoe in candle wax and waning death not a curtains drawn by angels borne 'what a nice way to go' death |
Nothing Gold Can Stay -- Robert Frost
(Poem #55)Nothing Gold Can Stay Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. |
The Looking Glass -- Kamala Das
(Poem #54)The Looking Glass Getting a man to love you is easy Only be honest about your wants as Woman. Stand nude before the glass with him So that he sees himself the stronger one And believes it so, and you so much more Softer, younger, lovelier. Admit your Admiration. Notice the perfection Of his limbs, his eyes reddening under The shower, the shy walk across the bathroom floor, Dropping towels, and the jerky way he Urinates. All the fond details that make Him male and your only man. Gift him all, Gift him what makes you woman, the scent of Long hair, the musk of sweat between the breasts, The warm shock of menstrual blood, and all your Endless female hungers. Oh yes, getting A man to love is easy, but living Without him afterwards may have to be Faced. A living without life when you move Around, meeting strangers, with your eyes that Gave up their search, with ears that hear only His last voice calling out your name and your Body which once under his touch had gleamed Like burnished brass, now drab and destitute. |
Night Vision -- Suzanne Vega
(Poem #53)Night Vision By day give thanks, by night beware Half the world in sweetness, the other in fear When the darkness takes you, with her hand across your face Don't give in too quickly, find the things she's erased Find the line, find the shape through the grain Find the outline and things will tell you their name The table, the guitar, the empty glass All will blend together when the daylight has passed Find the line, find the shape through the grain Find the outline and things will tell you their name Now I watch you falling into sleep Watch your fist uncurl against the sheet Watch your lips fall open and your eyes dim In blind faith I would shelter you And keep you in light But I can only teach you Night vision Night vision Night vision |
God Is In The House -- Nick Cave
(Poem #52)God Is In The House We've laid the cables and the wires We've split the wood and stoked the fires We've lit our town so there is no Place for crime to hide Our little church is painted white And in the safety of the night We all go quiet as a mouse For the word is out God is in the house God is in the house God is in the house No cause for worry now God is in the house Moral sneaks in the White House Computer geeks in the school house Drug freaks in the crack house We don't have that stuff here We have a tiny little Force But we need them of course For the kittens in the trees And at night we are on our knees As quiet as a mouse For God is in the house God is in the house God is in the house And no one's left in doubt God is in the house Homos roaming the streets in packs Queer bashers with tyre-jacks Lesbian counter-attacks That stuff is for the big cities Our town is very pretty We have a pretty little square We have a woman for a mayor Our policy is firm but fair Now that God is in the house God is in the house God is in the house Any day now He'll come out God is in the house Well-meaning little therapists Goose-stepping twelve-stepping Tetotalitarianists The tipsy, the reeling and the drop down pissed We got no time for that stuff here Zero crime and no fear We've bred all our kittens white So you can see them in the night And at night we're on our knees As quiet as a mouse Since the word got out From the North down to the South For no-one's left in doubt There's no fear about If we all hold hands and very quietly shout Hallelujah God is in the house God is in the house Oh I wish He would come out God is in the house |
All You who Sleep Tonight -- Vikram Seth
(Poem #51)All You who Sleep Tonight All you who sleep tonight Far from the ones you love, No hand to left or right And emptiness above - Know that you aren't alone The whole world shares your tears, Some for two nights or one, And some for all their years. |
The Unknown Citizen -- W H Auden
(Poem #50)The Unknown Citizen (To JS/07/M/378 This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State) He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be One against whom there was no official complaint, And all the reports on his conduct agree That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint, For in everything he did he served the Greater Community. Except for the War till the day he retired He worked in a factory and never got fired, But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc. Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views, For his Union reports that he paid his dues, (Our report on his Union shows it was sound) And our Social Psychology workers found That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink. The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way. Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured, And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured. Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Installment Plan And had everything necessary to the Modern Man, A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire. Our researchers into Public Opinion are content That he held the proper opinions for he time of year; When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went. He was married and added five children to the population, Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation. And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education. Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard. |
Five Ways to Kill a Man -- Edwin Brock
(Poem #49)Five Ways to Kill a Man There are many cumbersome ways to kill a man. You can make him carry a plank of wood to the top of a hill and nail him to it. To do this properly you require a crowd of people wearing sandals, a cock that crows, a cloak to dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and one man to hammer the nails home. Or you can take a length of steel, shaped and chased in a traditional way, and attempt to pierce the metal cage he wears. But for this you need white horses, English trees, men with bows and arrows, at least two flags, a prince, and a castle to hold your banquet in. Dispensing with nobility, you may, if the wind allows, blow gas at him. But then you need a mile of mud sliced through with ditches, not to mention black boots, bomb craters, more mud, a plague of rats, a dozen songs and some round hats made of steel. In an age of aeroplanes, you may fly miles above your victim and dispose of him by pressing one small switch. All you then require is an ocean to separate you, two systems of government, a nation's scientists, several factories, a psychopath and land that no-one needs for several years. These are, as I began, cumbersome ways to kill a man. Simpler, direct, and much more neat is to see that he is living somewhere in the middle of the twentieth century, and leave him there. |
We Real Cool -- Gwendolyn Brooks
(Poem #48)We Real Cool THE POOL PLAYERS.
SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
|
The Blues -- Billy Collins
(Poem #47)The Blues Much of what is said here must be said twice, a reminder that no one takes an immediate interest in the pain of others. Nobody will listen, it would seem, if you simply admit your baby left you early this morning she didn’t even stop to say good-bye. But if you sing it again with the help of the band which will now lift you to a higher, more ardent and beseeching key, people will not only listen; they will shift to the sympathetic edges of their chairs, moved to such acute anticipation by that chord and the delay that follows, they will not be able to sleep unless you release with one finger a scream from the throat of your guitar and turn your head back to the microphone to let them know you’re a hard-hearted man but that woman’s sure going to make you cry. |
"Hope" Is The Thing With Feathers -- Emily Dickinson
(Poem #46)"Hope" Is The Thing With Feathers "Hope" is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all - And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard - And sore must be the storm - That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm - I’ve heard it in the chillest land - And on the strangest Sea - Yet - never - in Extremity, It asked a crumb - of me. |
The God Who Loves You -- Carl Dennis
(Poem #45)The God Who Loves You It must be troubling for the god who loves you To ponder how much happier you'd be today Had you been able to glimpse your many futures. It must be painful for him to watch you on Friday evenings Driving home from the office, content with your week— Three fine houses sold to deserving families— Knowing as he does exactly what would have happened Had you gone to your second choice for college, Knowing the roommate you'd have been allotted Whose ardent opinions on painting and music Would have kindled in you a lifelong passion. A life thirty points above the life you're living On any scale of satisfaction. And every point A thorn in the side of the god who loves you. You don't want that, a large-souled man like you Who tries to withhold from your wife the day's disappointments So she can save her empathy for the children. And would you want this god to compare your wife With the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus? It hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation You'd have enjoyed over there higher in insight Than the conversation you're used to. And think how this loving god would feel Knowing that the man next in line for your wife Would have pleased her more than you ever will Even on your best days, when you really try. Can you sleep at night believing a god like that Is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives You're spared by ignorance? The difference between what is And what could have been will remain alive for him Even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill Running out in the snow for the morning paper, Losing eleven years that the god who loves you Will feel compelled to imagine scene by scene Unless you come to the rescue by imagining him No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend No closer than the actual friend you made at college, The one you haven't written in months. Sit down tonight And write him about the life you can talk about With a claim to authority, the life you've witnessed, Which for all you know is the life you've chosen. |
Apology to the Wasps -- Sara Littlecrow-Russell
(Poem #44)Apology to the Wasps Terrorized by your stings, I took out biochemical weapons And blasted your nest Like it was a third world country. I was the United States Air Force. It felt good to be so powerful Until I saw your family Trailing shredded wings, Staggering on disintegrating legs, Trying desperately to save the eggs You had stung to protect. |
Windows is Shutting Down -- Clive James
(Poem #43)Windows is Shutting Down Windows is shutting down, and grammar are On their last leg. So what am we to do? A letter of complaint go just so far, Proving the only one in step are you. Better, perhaps, to simply let it goes. A sentence have to be screwed pretty bad Before they gets to where you doesnt knows The meaning what it must of meant to had. The meteor have hit. Extinction spread, But evolution do not stop for that. A mutant languages rise from the dead And all them rules is suddenly old hat. Too bad for we, us what has had so long The best seat from the only game in town. But there it am, and whom can say its wrong? Those are the break. Windows is shutting down. |
Sleep -- Wesley McNair
(Poem #42)Sleep The young dog would like to know why we sit so long in one place intent on a box that makes the same noises and has no smell whatever. Get out! Get out! we tell him when he asks us by licking the back of our hand, which has small hairs, almost like his. Other times he finds us motionless with papers in our lap, or at a desk looking into a humming square of light. Soon the dog understands we are not looking, exactly, but sleeping with our eyes open, then goes to sleep himself. Is it us he cries out to, moving his legs somewhere beyond the rooms where we spend our lives? We don't think to ask, upset as we are in the end with the dog, who has begun throwing the old, shabby coat of himself down on every floor or rug in the apartment, sleep, we say, all that damn dog does is sleep. |
For the Man Who Taught Tricks to Owls -- David Wagoner
(Poem #41)For the Man Who Taught Tricks to Owls You say they were slow to learn. The brains of owls
Went down in your opinion through long hours
Of unresponsive staring
While you showed them how to act out minor parts
In the world of Harry Potter. Come with me now
Into the night, perch motionless, balanced
On a branch above a thicket, where every choice
Of a flight path is more narrow
Than your broad wing-span, more jagged
And crooked than patterns of interrupted moonlight
On twigs and fallen leaves, where what you take
In silence with claws and beak to stay alive
Knows everything about you except your tricks,
Except where you're going to be in the next instant
And how you got there without anyone's help
|
It is Marvellous to Wake Up Together -- Elizabeth Bishop
(Poem #40)It is Marvellous to Wake Up Together It is marvellous to wake up together At the same minute; marvellous to hear The rain begin suddenly all over the roof, To feel the air suddenly clear As if electricity had passed through it From a black mesh of wires in the sky. All over the roof the rain hisses, And below, the light falling of kisses. An electrical storm is coming or moving away; It is the prickling air that wakes us up. If lighting struck the house now, it would run From the four blue china balls on top Down the roof and down the rods all around us, And we imagine dreamily How the whole house caught in a bird-cage of lightning Would be quite delightful rather than frightening; And from the same simplified point of view Of night and lying flat on one's back All things might change equally easily, Since always to warn us there must be these black Electrical wires dangling. Without surprise The world might change to something quite different, As the air changes or the lightning comes without our blinking, Change as our kisses are changing without our thinking. |
Reading an Anthology of Chinese Poems of the Sung Dynasty, I Pause To Admire the Length and Clarity of Their Titles -- Billy Collins
(Poem #37)Reading an Anthology of Chinese Poems of the Sung Dynasty, I Pause To Admire the Length and Clarity of Their Titles It seems these poets have nothing up their ample sleeves they turn over so many cards so early, telling us before the first line whether it is wet or dry, night or day, the season the man is standing in, even how much he has had to drink. Maybe it is autumn and he is looking at a sparrow. Maybe it is snowing on a town with a beautiful name. "Viewing Peonies at the Temple of Good Fortune on a Cloudy Afternoon" is one of Sun Tung Po's. "Dipping Water from the River and Simmering Tea" is another one, or just "On a Boat, Awake at Night." And Lu Yu takes the simple rice cake with "In a Boat on a Summer Evening I Heard the Cry of a Waterbird. It Was Very Sad and Seemed To Be Saying My Woman Is Cruel--Moved, I Wrote This Poem." There is no iron turnstile to push against here as with headings like "Vortex on a String," "The Horn of Neurosis," or whatever. No confusingly inscribed welcome mat to puzzle over. Instead, "I Walk Out on a Summer Morning to the Sound of Birds and a Waterfall" is a beaded curtain brushing over my shoulders. And "Ten Days of Spring Rain Have Kept Me Indoors" is a servant who shows me into the room where a poet with a thin beard is sitting on a mat with a jug of wine whispering something about clouds and cold wind, about sickness and the loss of friends. How easy he has made it for me to enter here, to sit down in a corner, cross my legs like his, and listen. |
The pennycandystore beyond the El -- Lawrence Ferlinghetti
(Poem #36)The pennycandystore beyond the El The pennycandystore beyond the El
is where I first
fell in love
with unreality
Jellybeans glowed in the semi-gloom
of that september afternoon
A cat upon the counter moved among
the licorice sticks
and tootsie rolls
and Oh Boy Gum
Outside the leaves were falling as they died
A wind had blown away the sun
A girl ran in
Her hair was rainy
Her breasts were breathless in the little room
Outside the leaves were falling
and they cried
Too soon! too soon!
|
archy interviews a pharaoh -- Don Marquis
(Poem #35)archy interviews a pharaoh boss i went and interviewed the mummy of the egyptian pharaoh in the metropolitan museum as you bade me to do what ho my regal leatherface says i greetings little scatter footed scarab says he kingly has been says i what was your ambition when you had any insignificant and journalistic insect says the royal crackling in my tender prime i was too dignified to have anything as vulgar as ambition the ra ra boys in the seti set were too haughty to be ambitious we used to spend our time feeding the ibises and ordering pyramids sent home to try on but if i had my life to live over again i would give dignity the regal razz and hire myself out to work in a brewery old tan and tarry says i i detect in your speech the overtones of melancholy yes i am sad says the majestic mackerel i am as sad as the song of a soudanese jackal who is wailing for the blood red moon he cannot reach and rip on what are you brooding with such a wistful wishfulness there in the silences confide in me my perial pretzel says i i brood on beer my scampering whiffle snoot on beer says he my sympathies are with your royal dryness says i my little pest says he you must be respectful in the presence of a mighty desolation little archy forty centuries of thirst look down upon you oh by isis and by osiris says the princely raisin and by pish and phthush and phthah by the sacred book perembru and all the gods that rule from the upper cataract of the nile to the delta of the duodenum i am dry i am as dry as the next morning mouth of a dissipated desert as dry as the hoofs of the camels of timbuctoo little fussy face i am as dry as the heart of a sand storm at high noon in hell i have been lying here and there for four thousand years with silicon in my esophagus as gravel in my gizzard thinking thinking thinking of beer divine drouth says i imperial fritter continue to think there is no law against that in this country old salt codfish if you keep quiet about it not yet what country is this asks the poor prune my reverend juicelessness this is a beerless country says i well well said the royal desiccation my political opponents back home always maintained that i would wind up in hell and it seems they had the right dope and with these hopeless words the unfortunate residuum gave a great cough of despair and turned to dust and debris right in my face it being the only time i ever actually saw anybody put the cough into sarcophagus dear boss as i scurry about i hear of a great many tragedies in our midsts personally i yearn for some dear friend to pass over and leave to me a boot legacy yours for the second coming of gambrinus archy |
Boy at the Window -- Richard Wilbur
(Poem #34)Boy at the Window Seeing the snowman standing all alone In dusk and cold is more than he can bear. The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare A night of gnashings and enormous moan. His tearful sight can hardly reach to where The pale-faced figure with bitumen eyes Returns him such a god-forsaken stare As outcast Adam gave to Paradise. The man of snow is, nonetheless, content, Having no wish to go inside and die. Still, he is moved to see the youngster cry. Though frozen water is his element, He melts enough to drop from one soft eye A trickle of the purest rain, a tear For the child at the bright pane surrounded by Such warmth, such light, such love, and so much fear. |
Middle Age -- Pat Schneider
(Poem #33)Middle Age The child you think you don't want is the one who will make you laugh. She will break your heart when she loses the sight in one eye and tells the doctor she wants to be an apple tree when she grows up. It will be this child who forgives you again and again for believing you don't want her to be born, for resisting the rising tide of your body, for wishing for the red flow of her dismissal. She will even forgive you for all the breakfasts you failed to make exceptional. Someday this child will sit beside you. When you are old and too tired of war to want to watch the evening news, she will tell you stories like the one about her teenaged brother, your son, and his friends taking her out in a canoe when she was five years old. How they left her alone on an island in the river while they jumped off the railroad bridge. |
Rain -- Naomi Shihab Nye
(Poem #32)Rain A teacher asked Paul what he would remember from third grade, and he sat a long time before writing "this year somebody tutched me on the sholder" and turned his paper in. Later she showed it to me as an example of her wasted life. The words he wrote were large as houses in a landscape. He wanted to go inside them and live, he could fill in the windows of "o" and "d" and be safe while outside birds building nests in drainpipes knew nothing of the coming rain. |
The Meadow Mouse -- Theodore Roethke
(Poem #31)The Meadow Mouse 1
In a shoe box stuffed in an old nylon stocking
Sleeps the baby mouse I found in the meadow,
Where he trembled and shook beneath a stick
Till I caught him up by the tail and brought him in,
Cradled in my hand,
A little quaker, the whole body of him trembling,
His absurd whiskers sticking out like a cartoon-mouse,
His feet like small leaves,
Little lizard-feet,
Whitish and spread wide when he tried to struggle away,
Wriggling like a minuscule puppy.
Now he's eaten his three kinds of cheese and drunk from his
bottle-cap watering-trough--
So much he just lies in one corner,
His tail curled under him, his belly big
As his head; his bat-like ears
Twitching, tilting toward the least sound.
Do I imagine he no longer trembles
When I come close to him?
He seems no longer to tremble.
2
But this morning the shoe-box house on the back porch is empty.
Where has he gone, my meadow mouse,
My thumb of a child that nuzzled in my palm?--
To run under the hawk's wing,
Under the eye of the great owl watching from the elm-tree,
To live by courtesy of the shrike, the snake, the tom-cat.
I think of the nestling fallen into the deep grass,
The turtle gasping in the dusty rubble of the highway,
The paralytic stunned in the tub, and the water rising,--
All things innocent, hapless, forsaken.
|
We Bring Democracy To The Fish -- Donald Hall
(Poem #30)We Bring Democracy To The Fish It is unacceptable that fish prey on each other. For their comfort and safety, we will liberate them into fishfarms with secure, durable boundaries that exclude predators. Our care will provide for their liberty, health, happiness, and nutrition. Of course all creatures need to feel useful. At maturity the fish will discover their purposes. |
The Quiet World -- Jeffrey McDaniel
(Poem #29)The Quiet World In an effort to get people to look into each other's eyes more, the government has decided to allot each person exactly one hundred and sixty-seven words, per day. When the phone rings, I put it to my ear without saying hello. In the restaurant I point at chicken noodle soup. I am adjusting well to the new way. Late at night, I call my long distance lover and proudly say I only used fifty-nine today. I saved the rest for you. When she doesn't respond, I know she's used up all her words so I slowly whisper I love you, thirty-two and a third times. After that, we just sit on the line and listen to each other breathe. |
The Old Astronomer -- Sarah Williams
(Poem #28)The Old Astronomer Reach me down my Tycho Brahe, -- I would know him when we meet, When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet; He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how We are working to completion, working on from then till now. Pray, remember, that I leave you all my theory complete, Lacking only certain data, for your adding as is meet; And remember, men will scorn it, 'tis original and true, And the obloquy of newness may fall bitterly on you. But, my pupil, as my pupil you have learnt the worth of scorn; You have laughed with me at pity, we have joyed to be forlorn; What, for us, are all distractions of men's fellowship and smiles? What, for us, the goddess Pleasure, with her meretricious wiles? You may tell that German college that their honour comes too late. But they must not waste repentance on the grizzly savant's fate; Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night. |
Song Against Natural Selection -- Edward Hirsch
(Poem #27)Song Against Natural Selection The weak survive! A man with a damaged arm, a house missing a single brick, one step torn away from the other steps the way I was once torn away from you; this hurts us, it isn't what we'd imagined, what we'd hoped for when we were young and still hoping for, still imagining things, but we manage, we survive. Sure, losing is hard work, one limb severed at a time makes it that much harder to get around the city, another word dropped from our vocabularies and the remaining words are that much heavier on our tongues, that much further from ourselves, and yet people go on talking, speech survives. It isn't easy giving up limbs, trying to manage with that much less to eat each week, that much more money we know we'll never make, things we not only can't buy, but can't afford to look at in the stores; this hurts us, and yet we manage, we survive so that losing itself becomes a kind of song, our song, our only witness to the way we die, one day at a time; a leg severed, a word buried: this is how we recognize ourselves, and why. |
Against Entropy -- John M Ford
(Poem #26)Against Entropy The worm drives helically through the wood And does not know the dust left in the bore Once made the table integral and good; And suddenly the crystal hits the floor. Electrons find their paths in subtle ways, A massless eddy in a trail of smoke; The names of lovers, light of other days Perhaps you will not miss them. That's the joke. The universe winds down. That's how it's made. But memory is everything to lose; Although some of the colors have to fade, Do not believe you'll get the chance to choose. Regret, by definition, comes too late; Say what you mean. Bear witness. Iterate. |
The Wild Geese -- Wendell Berry
(Poem #25)The Wild Geese Horseback on Sunday morning, harvest over, we taste persimmon and wild grape, sharp sweet of summer's end. In time's maze over fall fields, we name names that went west from here, names that rest on graves. We open a persimmon seed to find the tree that stands in promise, pale, in the seed's marrow. Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear, in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye clear. What we need is here. |
I Love You Sweatheart -- Thomas Lux
(Poem #24)I Love You Sweatheart A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend holding his legs?) with spray paint to write the words on a girder fifty feet above a highway. And his beloved, the next morning driving to work...? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she recognize his handwriting? Did he hint to her at her doorstep the night before of "something special, darling, tomorrow"? And did he call her at work expecting her to faint with delight at his celebration of her, his passion, his risk? She will know I love her now, the world will know my love for her! A man risked his life to write the words. Love is like this at the bone, we hope, love is like this, Sweatheart, all sore and dumb and dangerous, ignited, blessed -- always, regardless, no exceptions, always in blazing matters like these: blessed. |
Casabianca -- Elizabeth Bishop
(Poem #23)Casabianca Love's the boy stood on the burning deck trying to recite "The boy stood on the burning deck". Love's the son stood stammering elocution while the poor ship in flames went down. Love's the obstinate boy, the ship, even the swimming sailors, who would like a schoolroom platform, too or an excuse to stay on deck. And love's the burning boy. |
Acquainted with the Night -- Robert Frost
(Poem #22)Acquainted with the Night I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet When far away an interrupted cry Came over houses from another street, But not to call me back or say good-bye; And further still at an unearthly height, O luminary clock against the sky Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. I have been one acquainted with the night. |
It Isn't Time That's Passing -- Ruskin Bond
(Poem #21)It Isn't Time That's Passing Remember the long ago when we lay together In a pain of tenderness and counted Our dreams: long summer afternoons When the whistling-thrush released A deep sweet secret on the trembling air; Blackbird on the wing, bird of the forest shadows, Black rose in the long ago summer, This was your song: It isn't time that's passing by, It is you and I. |
Where We Are -- Stephen Dobyns
(Poem #20)Where We Are A man tears a chunk of bread off the brown loaf, then wipes the gravy from his plate. Around him at the long table, friends fill their mouths with duck and roast pork, fill their cups from pitchers of wine. Hearing a high twittering, the man looks to see a bird— black with a white patch beneath its beak— flying the length of the hall, having flown in by a window over the door. As straight as a taut string, the bird flies beneath the roofbeams, as firelight flings its shadow against the ceiling. The man pauses— one hand holds the bread, the other rests upon the table— and watches the bird, perhaps a swift, fly toward the window at the far end of the room. He begins to point it out to his friends, but one is telling hunting stories, as another describes the best way to butcher a pig. The man shoves the bread in his mouth, then slaps his hand down hard on the thigh of the woman seated beside him, squeezes his fingers to feel the firm muscles and tendons beneath the fabric of her dress. A huge dog snores on the stone hearth by the fire. From the window comes the clicking of pine needles blown against it by an October wind. A half moon hurries along behind scattered clouds, while the forest of black spruce and bare maple and birch surrounds the long hall the way a single rock can be surrounded by a river. This is where we are in history— to think the table will remain full; to think the forest will remain where we have pushed it; to think our bubble of good fortune will save us from the night— a bird flies in from the dark, flits across a lighted hall and disappears. |
Over the Hills and Far Away -- Jimmy Page/Robert Plant
(Poem #19)Over the Hills and Far Away Hey lady– you got the love I need Maybe more than enough. Oh Darling... walk a while with me You’ve got so much Many have I loved – Many times been bitten Many times I’ve gazed along the open road. Many times I’ve lied – Many times I’ve listened Many times I’ve wondered how much there is to know. Many dreams come true and some have silver linings I live for my dream and a pocketful of gold. Mellow is the man who knows what he’s been missing Many many men can’t see the open road. Many is a word that only leaves you guessing Guessing ’bout a thing you really ought to know, ooh! You really ought to know |
I Will Make You Brooches -- Robert Louis Stevenson
(Poem #18)I Will Make You Brooches I will make you brooches and toys for your delight Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night. I will make a palace fit for you and me Of green days in forests and blue days at sea. I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room, Where white flows the river and bright blows the broom, And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white In rainfall at morning and dewfall at night. And this shall be for music when no one else is near, The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear That only I remember, that only you admire, Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire. |
Concerto for Double Bass -- John Fuller
(Poem #17)Concerto for Double Bass He is a drunk leaning companionably Around a lamp post or doing up With intermittent concentration Another drunk's coat. He is a polite but devoted Valentino, Cheek to cheek, forgetting the next step. He is feeling the pulse of the fat lady Or cutting her in half. But close your eyes and it is sunset At the edge of the world. It is the language Of dolphins, the growth of tree-roots, The heart-beat slowing down. |
Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night -- Dylan Thomas
(Poem #16)Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. |
Those Winter Sundays -- Robert Hayden
(Poem #15)Those Winter Sundays Sundays too my father got up early And put his clothes on in the blueback cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. When the rooms were warm, he'd call, and slowly I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house, Speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well. What did I know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices? |
The Day is Done -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(Poem #14)The Day is Done The day is done, and the darkness Falls from the wings of Night, As a feather is wafted downward From an eagle in his flight. I see the lights of the village Gleam through the rain and the mist, And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me That my soul cannot resist: A feeling of sadness and longing, That is not akin to pain, And resembles sorrow only As the mist resembles the rain. Come, read to me some poem, Some simple and heartfelt lay, That shall soothe this restless feeling, And banish the thoughts of day. Not from the grand old masters, Not from the bards sublime, Whose distant footsteps echo Through the corridors of Time, For, like strains of martial music, Their mighty thoughts suggest Life's endless toil and endeavor; And tonight I long for rest. Read from some humbler poet, Whose songs gushed from his heart, As showers from the clouds of summer, Or tears from the eyelids start; Who, through long days of labor, And nights devoid of ease, Still heard in his soul the music Of wonderful melodies. Such songs have a power to quiet The restless pulse of care, And comes like the benediction That follows after prayer. Then read from the treasured volume The poem of thy choice, And lend to the rhyme of the poet The beauty of thy voice. And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares, that infest the day, Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, And as silently steal away. |
Marengo -- Mary Oliver
(Poem #13)Marengo Out of the sump rise the marigolds. From the rim of the marsh, muslin with mosquitoes, rises the egret, in his cloud-cloth. Through the soft rain, like mist, and mica, the withered acres of moss begin again. When I have to die, I would like to die on a day of rain-- long rain, slow rain, the kind you think will never end. And I would like to have whatever little ceremony there might be take place while the rain is shoveled and shoveled out of the sky, and anyone who comes must travel, slowly and with thought, as around the edges of the great swamp. |
The Comforters -- Dora Sigerson Shorter
(Poem #12)The Comforters When I crept over the hill, broken with tears, When I crouched down on the grass, dumb in despair, I heard the soft croon of the wind bend to my ears, I felt the light kiss of the wind touching my hair. When I stood lone on the height, my sorrow did speak, As I went down the hill, I cried and I cried, The soft little hands of the rain stroking my cheek, The kind little feet of the rain ran by my side. When I went to thy grave, broken with tears, When I crouched down in the grass, dumb in despair, I heard the soft croon of the wind soft in my ears, I felt the kind lips of the wind touching my hair. When I stood lone by thy cross, sorrow did speak, When I went down the long hill, I cried and I cried, The soft little hands of the rain stroked my pale cheek, The kind little feet of the rain ran by my side. |
I Finally Managed To Speak To Her -- Hal Sirowitz
(Poem #11)I Finally Managed To Speak To Her She was sitting across from me on the bus. I said, "The trees look so much greener in this part of the country. In New York City everything looks so drab." She said, "It looks the same to me. Show me a tree that's different." "That one," I said. "Which one?" she said. "It's too late," I said; "we already passed it." "When you find another one," she said, "let me know." And then she went back to reading her book. |
Selecting A Reader -- Ted Kooser
(Poem #10)Selecting A Reader First, I would have her be beautiful, and walking carefully up on my poetry at the loneliest moment of an afternoon, her hair still damp at the neck from washing it. She should be wearing a raincoat, an old one, dirty from not having money enough for the cleaners. She will take out her glasses, and there in the bookstore, she will thumb over my poems, then put the book back up on its shelf. She will say to herself, "For that kind of money, I can get my raincoat cleaned." And she will. |
Second Chance -- Louis McKee
(Poem #9)Second Chance In my dream I return to the place I went wrong, and given this chance to change things, I go on down the way I went before. Even in sleep I know there is only one go— and it went well the first time. Where it didn't- well, it will be good to see her again. |
Things Shouldn't Be So Hard -- Kay Ryan
(Poem #8)Things Shouldn't Be So Hard A life should leave deep tracks: ruts where she went out and back to get the mail or move the hose around the yard; where she used to stand before the sink, a worn-out place; beneath her hand the china knobs rubbed down to white pastilles; the switch she used to feel for in the dark almost erased. Her things should keep her marks. The passage of a life should show; it should abrade. And when life stops, a certain space— however small— should be left scarred by the grand and damaging parade. Things shouldn't be so hard. |
A Portrait of the Reader with a Bowl of Cereal -- Billy Collins
(Poem #7)A Portrait of the Reader with a Bowl of Cereal Every morning I sit across from you at the same small table, the sun all over the breakfast things— curve of a blue-and-white pitcher, a dish of berries— me in a sweatshirt or robe, you invisible. Most days, we are suspended over a deep pool of silence. I stare straight through you or look out the window at the garden, the powerful sky, a cloud passing behind a tree. There is no need to pass the toast, the pot of jam, or pour you a cup of tea, and I can hide behind the paper, rotate in its drum of calamitous news. But some days I may notice a little door swinging open in the morning air, and maybe the tea leaves of some dream will be stuck to the china slope of the hour— then I will lean forward, elbows on the table, with something to tell you, and you will look up, as always, your spoon dripping milk, ready to listen. |
One Art -- Elizabeth Bishop
(Poem #7)One Art The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. ---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster. |
The Past is Still There -- Deborah Garrison
(Poem #5)The Past is Still There I've forgotten so much. What it felt like back then, what we said to each other. But sometimes when I'm standing at the kitchen counter after dinner and I look out the window at the dark thinking of nothing, something swims up. Tonight this: your laughing into my mouth as you were trying to kiss me. |
Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye -- Leonard Cohen
(Poem #4)Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm, your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm, yes, many loved before us, I know that we are not new, in city and in forest they smiled like me and you, but now it's come to distances and both of us must try, your eyes are soft with sorrow, Hey, that's no way to say goodbye. I'm not looking for another as I wander in my time, walk me to the corner, our steps will always rhyme you know my love goes with you as your love stays with me, it's just the way it changes, like the shoreline and the sea, but let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't untie, your eyes are soft with sorrow, Hey, that's no way to say goodbye. I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm, your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm, yes many loved before us, I know that we are not new, in city and in forest they smiled like me and you, but let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't untie, your eyes are soft with sorrow, Hey, that's no way to say goodbye. |
Everything We Do -- Peter Meinke
(Poem #3)Everything We Do Everything we do is for our first loves whom we have lost irrevocably who have married insurance salesmen and moved to Topeka and never think of us at all. We fly planes & design buildings and write poems that all say Sally I love you I'll never love anyone else Why didn't you know I was going to be a poet? The walks to school, the kisses in the snow gather as we dream backwards, sweetness with age: our legs are young again, our voices strong and happy, we're not afraid. We don't know enough to be afraid. And now we hold (hidden, hopeless) the hope that some day she may fly in our plane enter our building read our poem And that night, deep in her dream, Sally, far in darkness, in Topeka, with the salesman lying beside her, will cry out our unfamiliar name. |
Album -- Ron Padgett
(Poem #2)Album The mental pictures I have of my parents and grandparents and my childhood are beginning to break up into small fragments and get blown away from me into empty space, and the same wind is sucking me toward it ever so gently, so gently as not even to raise a hair on my head (though the truth is that there are very few of them to be raised). I'm starting to take the idea of death as the end of life somewhat harder than before. I used to wonder why people seemed to think that life is tragic or sad. Isn't it also comic and funny? And beyond all that, isn't it amazing and marvelous? Yes, but only if you have it. And I am starting not to have it. The pictures are disintegrating, as if their molecules were saying, "I've had enough," ready to go somewhere else and form a new configuration. They betray us, those molecules, we who have loved them. They treat us like dirt. |