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Happiness -- Wesley McNair

(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.
-- 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.
-- Raymond Carver

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.
-- Simon Armitage

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.
-- Robert Browning

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.
-- Billy Collins

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.
-- Ted Kooser

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.
-- Nina Cassian

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.
-- Randall Jarrell

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.
-- Bobbi Lurie

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 --
-- Alfred Kreymborg

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.
-- Sara Teasdale

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.
-- Otomo No Yakamochi

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.
-- Billy Collins

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. 
-- Gary L. Lark

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.
-- Mark Defoe

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?" 
-- Nancy Willard

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.
-- Alan Ziegler

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? 
-- Jennifer Maier

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. 
-- Steve Kowit

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.
-- Yehuda Amichai

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.
-- Billy Collins

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.
-- Roald Dahl

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?"
-- Richard Jones

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.
-- e e cummings

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.
-- Gil Scott-Heron

To Tu Fu from Shantung -- Li Po

(Poem #59)To Tu Fu from Shantung
 You ask how I spend my time--
 I nestle against a treetrunk
 and listen to autumn winds
 in the pines all night and day.

 Shantung wine can't get me drunk.
 The local poets bore me.
 My thoughts remain with you,
 like the Wen River, endlessly flowing.
-- Li Po

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.
-- Rainer Maria Rilke

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.
-- Jeffrey McDaniel

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
-- Roger McGough

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.
-- Robert Frost

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.
-- Kamala Das

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
-- Suzanne Vega

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
-- Nick Cave

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.
-- Vikram Seth

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.
-- W H Auden

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.
-- Edwin Brock

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.
-- Gwendolyn Brooks

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.
-- Billy Collins

"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.
-- Emily Dickinson

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. 
-- Carl Dennis

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.
-- Sara Littlecrow-Russell

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.
-- Clive James

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.
-- Wesley McNair

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
-- David Wagoner

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.
-- Elizabeth Bishop

Untitled -- Plato

(Poem #39)Untitled
 Star of my life, to the stars your face is turned;
 Would I were the heavens, looking back at you with ten thousand eyes.
-- Plato

Visitor -- Les Murray

(Poem #38)Visitor
 He knocks at the door
 and listens to his heart approaching.
-- Les Murray

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.
-- Billy Collins

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!
-- Lawrence Ferlinghetti

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
-- Don Marquis

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.
-- Richard Wilbur

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. 
-- Pat Schneider

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.
-- Naomi Shihab Nye

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.
-- Theodore Roethke

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.
-- Donald Hall

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.
-- Jeffrey McDaniel

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.
-- Sarah Williams

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.
-- Edward Hirsch

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.
-- John M Ford

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.
-- Wendell Berry

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.
-- Thomas Lux

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.
-- Elizabeth Bishop

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.
-- Robert Frost

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.
-- Ruskin Bond

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.
-- Stephen Dobyns

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
-- Jimmy Page/Robert Plant

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.
-- Robert Louis Stevenson

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.
-- John Fuller

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.
-- Dylan Thomas

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?
-- Robert Hayden

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.
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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.
-- Mary Oliver

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.
-- Dora Sigerson Shorter

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.
-- Hal Sirowitz

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.
-- Ted Kooser

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.
-- Louis McKee

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.
-- Kay Ryan

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.
-- Billy Collins

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.
-- Elizabeth Bishop

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.
-- Deborah Garrison

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.
-- Leonard Cohen

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. 
-- Peter Meinke

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.
-- Ron Padgett