(Poem #232)If What You're Waiting for is Christmas If what you're waiting for is Christmas You don't need me to tell you so If you've been looking for somebody You might not have that far to go See how the candle dances With all the shadows on the wall If what you're waiting for is Christmas It might be coming after all Sometimes I feel so tired Sometimes I feel so blue I'm just going thru the motions Of almost anything I do But guess I'm getting better Even I'm a bit surprised When I see my own reflection In a dark haired angel's eyes Maybe all that really matters Try to feel the mystery Found in people left abandoned Burning, blooming poetry If for miracles you hunger You might see a few come true If what you're waiting for is Christmas It might be waiting there for you. |
If What You're Waiting for is Christmas -- David Devine
Lines -- Martha Collins
(Poem #231)Lines Draw a line. Write a line. There. Stay in line, hold the line, a glance between the lines is fine but don't turn corners, cross, cut in, go over or out, between two points of no return's a line of flight, between two points of view's a line of vision. But a line of thought is rarely straight, an open line's no party line, however fine your point. A line of fire communicates, but drop your weapons and drop your line, consider the shortest distance from x to y, let x be me, let y be you. |
The Tree of Song -- Sara Teasdale
(Poem #230)The Tree of Song I sang my songs for the rest, For you I am still; The tree of my song is bare On its shining hill. For you came like a lordly wind, And the leaves were whirled Far as forgotten things Past the rim of the world. The tree of my song stands bare Against the blue -- I gave my songs to the rest, Myself to you. |
The Light Above Cities -- Jay Leeming
(Poem #229)The Light Above Cities Sitting in darkness, I see how the light of the city fills the clouds, rosewater light poured into the sky like the single body we are. It is the sum of a million lives; a man drinking beer beneath a light bulb, a dancer spinning in a fluorescent room, a girl reading a book beneath a lamp. Yet there are others — astronomers, thieves, lovers — whose work is only done in darkness. Sometimes I don't want to show these poems to anyone, sometimes I want to remain hidden, deep in the coals with the one who pulls the stars through a telescope's glass, the one who listens for the click of the lock, the one who kisses softly a woman's eyes. |
where we are -- Gerald Locklin
(Poem #228)where we are i envy those who live in two places: new york, say, and london; wales and spain; l.a. and paris; hawaii and switzerland. there is always the anticipation of the change, the chance that what is wrong is the result of where you are. i have always loved both the freshness of arriving and the relief of leaving. with two homes every move would be a homecoming. i am not even considering the weather, hot or cold, dry or wet: i am talking about hope. |
Unclaimed -- Vikram Seth
(Poem #227)Unclaimed To make love with a stranger is the best. There is no riddle and there is no test. -- To lie and love, not aching to make sense Of this night in the mesh of reference. To touch, unclaimed by fear of imminent day, And understand, as only strangers may. To feel the beat of foreign heart to heart Preferring neither to prolong nor part. To rest within the unknown arms and know That this is all there is; that this is so. |
Sex Without Love -- Sharon Olds
(Poem #226)Sex Without Love How do they do it, the ones who make love without love? Beautiful as dancers, Gliding over each other like ice-skaters over the ice, fingers hooked inside each other's bodies, faces red as steak, wine, wet as the children at birth, whose mothers are going to give them away. How do they come to the come to the come to the God come to the still waters, and not love the one who came there with them, light rising slowly as steam off their joined skin? These are the true religious, the purists, the pros, the ones who will not accept a false Messiah, love the priest instead of the God. They do not mistake the lover for their own pleasure, they are like great runners: they know they are alone with the road surface, the cold, the wind, the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio- vascular health--just factors, like the partner in the bed, and not the truth, which is the single body alone in the universe against its own best time. |
The Story We Know -- Martha Collins
(Poem #225)The Story We Know The way to begin is always the same. Hello, Hello. Your hand, your name. So glad, Just fine, And Good-bye at the end. That's every story we know, And why pretend? But lunch tomorrow? No? Yes? An omelette, salad, chilled white wine? The way to begin is simple, sane, Hello, And then it's Sunday, coffee, the Times, a slow Day by the fire, dinner at eight or nine And Good-bye. In the end, this is a story we know So well we don't turn the page, or look below The picture, or follow the words to the next line: The way to begin is always the same Hello. But one night, through the latticed window, snow Begins to whiten the air, and the tall white pine. Good-bye is the end of every story we know That night, and when we close the curtains, oh, We hold each other against that cold white sign Of the way we all begin and end. Hello, Good-bye is the only story. We know, we know. |
Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man -- Ogden Nash
(Poem #224)Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man It is common knowledge to every schoolboy and even every Bachelor of Arts,
That all sin is divided into two parts.
One kind of sin is called a sin of commission, and that is very important,
And it is what you are doing when you are doing something you ortant,
And the other kind of sin is just the opposite and is called a sin of omission
and is equally bad in the eyes of all right-thinking people, from
Billy Sunday to Buddha,
And it consists of not having done something you shuddha.
I might as well give you my opinion of these two kinds of sin as long as,
in a way, against each other we are pitting them,
And that is, don't bother your head about the sins of commission because
however sinful, they must at least be fun or else you wouldn't be
committing them.
It is the sin of omission, the second kind of sin,
That lays eggs under your skin.
The way you really get painfully bitten
Is by the insurance you haven't taken out and the checks you haven't added up
the stubs of and the appointments you haven't kept and the bills you
haven't paid and the letters you haven't written.
Also, about sins of omission there is one particularly painful lack of beauty,
Namely, it isn't as though it had been a riotous red-letter day or night every
time you neglected to do your duty;
You didn't get a wicked forbidden thrill
Every time you let a policy lapse or forget to pay a bill;
You didn't slap the lads in the tavern on the back and loudly cry Whee,
Let's all fail to write just one more letter before we go home, and this round
of unwritten letters is on me.
No, you never get any fun
Out of things you haven't done,
But they are the things that I do not like to be amid,
Because the suitable things you didn't do give you a lot more trouble than the
unsuitable things you did.
The moral is that it is probably better not to sin at all, but if some kind of
sin you must be pursuing,
Well, remember to do it by doing rather than by not doing.
|
The Talking Back of Miss Valentine Jones: Poem # one -- June Jordan
(Poem #223)The Talking Back of Miss Valentine Jones: Poem # one well I wanted to braid my hair
bathe and bedeck my
self so fine
so fully aforethought for
your pleasure
see:
I wanted to travel and read
and runaround fantastic
into war and peace:
I wanted to
surf
dive
fly
climb
conquer
and be conquered
THEN
I wanted to pickup the phone
and find you asking me
if I might possibly be alone
some night
(so I could answer cool
as the jewels I would wear
on bareskin for you
digmedaddy delectation:)
"WHEN
you comin ova?"
But I had to remember to write down
margarine on the list
and shoepolish and a can of
sliced pineapple in casea company
and a quarta skim milk cause Teresa's
gaining weight and don' nobody groove on
that much
girl
and next I hadta sort for darks and lights before
the laundry hit the water which I had
to kinda keep an eye on be-
cause if the big hose jumps the sink again that
Mrs. Thompson gointa come upstairs
and brain me with a mop don' smell too
nice even though she hang
it headfirst out the winda
and I had to check
on William like to
burn hisself to death with fever
boy so thin be
callin all day "Momma! Sing to me?"
"Ma! Am I gone die?" and me not
wake enough to sit beside him longer than
to wipeaway the sweat or change the sheets/
his shirt and feed him orange
juice before I fall out of sleep and
Sweet My Jesus ain but one can
left
and we not thru the afternoon
and now
you (temporarily) shownup with a thing
you says' a poem and you
call it
"Will The Real Miss Black America Standup?"
guilty po' mouth
about duty beauties of my
headrag
boozeup doozies about
never mind
cause love is blind
well
I can't use it
and the very next bodacious Blackman
call me queen
because my life ain shit
because (in any case) he ain been here to share it
with me
(dish for dish and do for do and
dream for dream)
I'm gone scream him out my house
be-
cause what I wanted was
to braid my hair/bathe and bedeck my
self so fully be-
cause what I wanted was
your love
not pity
be-
cause what I wanted was
your love
your love
|
Epitaph on a tyrant -- W H Auden
(Poem #222)Epitaph on a tyrant Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after And the poetry he invented was easy to understand; He knew human folly like the back of his hand, And was greatly interested in armies and fleets; When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the streets. |
Hello In There -- John Prine
(Poem #220)Hello In There We had an apartment in the city, Me and Loretta liked living there. Well, it'd been years since the kids have grown, A life of their own left us alone. John and Linda live in Omaha, And Joe is somewhere on the road. We lost Davy in the Korean war, And I still don't know what for, it don't matter anymore. You know that old trees just grow stronger, And old rivers grow wilder ev'ry day. Old people just grow lonesome Waiting for someone to say, "Hello in there, hello." Me and Loretta, we don't talk much more, She sits and stares through the back door screen. And all the news just repeats itself Like some forgotten dream that we've both seen. Someday I'll go and call up Rudy, We worked together at the factory. But what could I say if he asks "What's new?" "Nothing, what's with you? Nothing much to do." You know that old trees just grow stronger, And old rivers grow wilder ev'ry day. Old people just grow lonesome Waiting for someone to say, "Hello in there, hello." So if you're walking down the street sometime And spot some hollow ancient eyes, Please don't just pass 'em by and stare As if you didn't care, say, "Hello in there, hello." |
Postcard -- Margaret Atwood
(Poem #219)Postcard I'm thinking of you. What else can I say? The palm trees on the reverse are a delusion; so is the pink sand. What we have are the usual fractured coke bottles and the smell of backed-up drains, too sweet, like a mango on the verge of rot, which we have also. The air clear sweat, mosquitos & their tracks; birds, blue & elusive. Time comes in waves here, a sickness, one day after the other rolling on; I move up, its called awake, then down into the uneasy nights but never forward. The roosters crow for hours before dawn, and a prodded child howls & howls on the pocked road to school. In the hold with the baggage there are two prisoners, their heads shaved by bayonets, & ten crates of queasy chicks. Each spring there's a race of cripples, from the store to the church. This is the sort of junk I carry with me; and a clipping about democracy from the local paper. Outside the window they're building the damn hotel, nail by nail, someone's crumbling dream. A universe that includes you can't be all bad, but does it? At this distance you're a mirage, a glossy image fixed in the posture of the last time I saw you. Turn you over, there's the place for the address. Wish you were here. Love comes in waves like the ocean, a sickness which goes on & on, a hollow cave in the head, filling and pounding, a kicked ear. |
Having A Coke With You -- Frank O'Hara
(Poem #218)Having A Coke With You is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary it is hard to believe when I'm with you that there can be anything as still as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it in the warm New York 4 o'clock light we are drifting back and forth between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them I look at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it's in the Frick which thank heavens you haven't gone to yet so we can go together the first time and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn't pick the rider as carefully as the horse it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it |
A Drinking Song -- William Butler Yeats
(Poem #217)A Drinking Song Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That’s all we know for truth Before we grow old and die. I lift the glass to my mouth, I look at you, and I sigh. |
The Love Cook -- Ron Padgett
(Poem #216)The Love Cook Let me cook you some dinner. Sit down and take off your shoes and socks and in fact the rest of your clothes, have a daquiri, turn on some music and dance around the house, inside and out, it’s night and the neighbors are sleeping, those dolts, and the stars are shining bright, and I’ve got the burners lit for you, you hungry thing. |
Summer Is Still Very Far Away -- Bai Hua
(Poem #215)Summer Is Still Very Far Away One day passes after another Secretly, something approaches you Sitting, walking Watching the leaves drop Watching the rain fall Watching as someone walks down the street Summer is still very far away It happened so fast, vanishing at birth All that is good entered on an October night So beautiful, entirely unnoticed A great serenity like your clean cloth shoes The past, vague and gentle, lingers by the bedside Like an old box A faded bookmark Summer is still very far away Meeting by chance, perhaps you can't recall It was a little cold outside Your left hand was tired, too Secretly you walked all the way to the left Far away, deep in The sole infatuation of your heart Summer is still very far away Never again easy to anger, easy to love To take up those old bad habits of yours Losing heart with each passing year A small bamboo house, a white shirt Are you in the prime of life? Seldom can a decision be made Summer is still very far away |
Mark Stern Wakes Up -- Frederick Feirstein
(Poem #214)Mark Stern Wakes Up Shining cratefuls of plum, peach, apricot Are flung out of the fruit man's tiny store. Behind the supermarket glass next door: Landslides of grapefruit, orange, tangerine, Persimmon, boysenberry, nectarine. The florist tilts his giant crayon box Of yellow roses, daffodils, and phlox. A Disney sun breaks through, makes toys of trucks And waddling movers look like Donald Ducks And joke book captions out of storefront signs: Café du Soir, Austrian Village, Wines. Pedestrians in olive drabs and grays Are startled by the sun's kinetic rays, Then mottled into pointillistic patches. The light turns green, cars passing hurl out snatches Of rock-and-roll and Mozart and the weather. The light turns red. Why aren't we together? |
Clenched Soul -- Pablo Neruda
(Poem #213)Clenched Soul We have lost even this twilight. No one saw us this evening hand in hand while the blue night dropped on the world. I have seen from my window the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops. Sometimes a piece of sun burned like a coin in my hand. I remembered you with my soul clenched in that sadness of mine that you know. Where were you then? Who else was there? Saying what? Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly when I am sad and feel you are far away? The book fell that always closed at twilight and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet. Always, always you recede through the evenings toward the twilight erasing statues. |
Splendour in the Grass -- William Wordsworth
(Poem #212)Splendour in the Grass What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now for ever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower, We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind; In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be; In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering; In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind. |
Lullaby -- Tom Waits
(Poem #211)Lullaby Sun is red; moon is cracked Daddy's never coming back Nothing's ever yours to keep Close your eyes, go to sleep If I die before you wake Don't you cry don't you weep Nothing's ever as it seems Climb the ladder to your dreams If I die before you wake Don't you cry; don't you weep Nothing's ever yours to keep Close your eyes; go to sleep |
A Good Son -- Miller Williams
(Poem #210)A Good Son He called home every once in a while to tell his mother, just so he could imagine how she would smile, something or other about a girlfriend or work or a new movie he might have seen, whatever was right. He lied some, but mostly he stayed between fantasy and fact. He was a good son. He loved his mother a lot and knew what she needed-- to live through him whether he lived or not. |
Evening in the Sanitarium -- Louise Bogan
(Poem #209)Evening in the Sanitarium The free evening fades, outside the windows fastened with decorative iron grilles. The lamps are lighted; the shades drawn; the nurses are watching a little. It is the hour of the complicated knitting on the safe bone needles; of the games of anagrams and bridge; The deadly game of chess; the book held up like a mask. The period of the wildest weeping, the fiercest delusion, is over. The women rest their tired half-healed hearts; they are almost well. Some of them will stay almost well always: the blunt-faced woman whose thinking dissolved Under academic discipline; the manic-depressive girl Now leveling off; one paranoiac afflicted with jealousy. Another with persecution. Some alleviation has been possible. O fortunate bride, who never again will become elated after childbirth! O lucky older wife, who has been cured of feeling unwanted! To the suburban railway station you will return, return, To meet forever Jim home on the 5:35. You will be again as normal and selfish and heartless as anybody else. There is life left: the piano says it with its octave smile. The soft carpets pad the thump and splinter of the suicide to be. Everything will be splendid: the grandmother will not drink habitually. The fruit salad will bloom on the plate like a bouquet And the garden produce the blue-ribbon aquilegia. The cats will be glad; the fathers feel justified; the mothers relieved. The sons and husbands will no longer need to pay the bills. Childhoods will be put away, the obscene nightmare abated. At the ends of the corridors the baths are running. Mrs. C. again feels the shadow of the obsessive idea. Miss R. looks at the mantel-piece, which must mean something. |
This Room -- John Ashbery
(Poem #208)This Room The room I entered was a dream of this room. Surely all those feet on the sofa were mine. The oval portrait of a dog was me at an early age. Something shimmers, something is hushed up. We had macaroni for lunch every day except Sunday, when a small quail was induced to be served to us. Why do I tell you these things? You are not even here. |
Stars All Seem To Weep -- Beth Orton
(Poem #207)Stars All Seem To Weep Stayed true to the things I knew when I was younger And food and love was all but left to hunger. 'Cause when I stray from my truth as I grow older Too much leaves an empty hollow hunger. I think about you on a moonlit night And the stars all seem to weep. When there's so much to lose There's never any time for sleep. Look at me doing all these things without you. We always left a new world untrue. Where was it we tried hard not to go to? I think that's how I finally came through. All the things we took for granted The words still live on in my head All the times I took for granted All the words I never said. I think about you in the moonlit night, And the stars all seem to weep. When there's so much love to give, There's never any time for sleep, yeah. So I stayed true to the things I knew when I was younger And human life was all but left to hunger, 'Cause when I stray from the truth as I grow older Too much leaves an empty hollow hunger. Too much leaves an empty hollow hunger. Living without you Living without you. Living without you, oh. |
The Perfect Day -- Alice N. Persons
(Poem #206)The Perfect Day You wake with no aches in the arms of your beloved to the smell of fresh coffee you eat a giant breakfast with no thought of carbs there is time to read with a purring cat on your lap later you walk by the ocean with your dog on this cut crystal day your favorite music and the sun fill the house a short delicious nap under a fleece throw comes later and the phone doesn't ring at dusk you roast a chicken, bake bread, make an exquisite chocolate cake for some friends you've been missing someone brings you an unexpected present and the wine is just right with the food after a wonderful party you sink into sleep in a clean nightgown in fresh sheets your sweetheart doesn't snore and in your dreams an old piece of sadness lifts away |
What We Want -- Linda Pastan
(Poem #205)What We Want What we want is never simple. We move among the things we thought we wanted: a face, a room, an open book and these things bear our names— now they want us. But what we want appears in dreams, wearing disguises. We fall past, holding out our arms and in the morning our arms ache. We don't remember the dream, but the dream remembers us. It is there all day as an animal is there under the table, as the stars are there even in full sun. |
Meeting Point -- Louis MacNeice
(Poem #204)Meeting Point -- Louis MacNeice Time was away and somewhere else, There were two glasses and two chairs And two people with the one pulse (Somebody stopped the moving stairs) Time was away and somewhere else. And they were neither up nor down; The stream's music did not stop Flowing through heather, limpid brown, Although they sat in a coffee shop And they were neither up nor down. The bell was silent in the air Holding its inverted poise - Between the clang and clang a flower, A brazen calyx of no noise: The bell was silent in the air. The camels crossed the miles of sand That stretched around the cups and plates; The desert was their own, they planned To portion out the stars and dates: The camels crossed the miles of sand. Time was away and somewhere else. The waiter did not come, the clock Forgot them and the radio waltz Came out like water from a rock: Time was away and somewhere else. Her fingers flicked away the ash That bloomed again in tropic trees: Not caring if the markets crash When they had forests such as these, Her fingers flicked away the ash. God or whatever means the Good Be praised that time can stop like this, That what the heart has understood Can verify in the body's peace God or whatever means the Good. Time was away and she was here And life no longer what it was, The bell was silent in the air And all the room one glow because Time was away and she was here. |
Daily I Fall in Love with Mechanics -- Susan Thurston
(Poem #203)Daily I Fall in Love with Mechanics Daily I fall in love with mechanics with their smudged coveralls and names embroidered over where their hearts just might be PETE STEWART RAY CHUCK BUTCH and thick soled boots. I love how they jack up my car and press the pneumatic drill to my tires and with hip press lean into the whir of liberation nuts and bolts falling released from so much spinning and holding everything tight in place. I feel their hands roughened by spark plugs and washer fluid yet sweetened by overflowing oil pans slide over me. Their arms and shoulders remind me of deep river valleys and other places where we could tumble after setting the parking brake... fumbling and clutching so melodiously I am left grateful for their engine knowledge. Daily I fall in love with mechanics with their grease smudged bad boy grins and come hither wide opening garage doors. They tell secrets in the pit and I want them. I know them. They slip belts back into place their legs diesel dark They have lovers or spouses or children or all. They are strut bearing reliable— they know how timing belts twist. Their toothpick punctuated grins reassure you they are giving you the best deal in town and they would not let you drive without checking all your fluid levels. Daily I fall in love with mechanics. They are better than Free Air want my vehicle to be safe and sound but they never travel far enough before pulling the next car into the station. |
Daily I Fall In Love With Waitresses -- Elliot Fried
(Poem #202)Daily I Fall In Love With Waitresses Daily I fall in love with waitresses with their white bouncing name tags KATHY MARGIE HONEY SUE and white rubber shoes. I love how they bend over tables pouring coffee. Their perky breasts hover above potatoes like jets coming in to LAX hang above the suburbs— shards of broken stars. I feel their fingers roughened by cube steaks softened with grease slide over me. Their hands and lean long bodies keep moving so... fumbling and clattering so harmoniously that I am left overwhelmed, quivering. Daily I fall in love with waitresses with their cream-cheese cool. They tell secrets in the kitchen and I want them. I know them. They press buttons creases burgers buns— their legs are menu smooth. They have boyfriends or husbands or children or all. They are french dressing worldly— they know how ice cubes clink. Their chipped teeth form chipped beef and muffin syllabics. Daily I fall in love with waitresses. They are Thousand Island dreams but they never stand still long enough as they serve serve serve. |
O Karma, Dharma, pudding and pie -- Philip Appleman
(Poem #201)O Karma, Dharma, pudding and pie O Karma, Dharma, pudding and pie, gimme a break before I die: grant me wisdom, will, & wit, purity, probity, pluck, & grit. Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, kind, gimme great abs & a steel-trap mind, and forgive, Ye Gods, some humble advice— these little blessings would suffice to beget an earthly paradise: make the bad people good— and the good people nice; and before our world goes over the brink, teach the believers how to think. |
Desert Places -- Robert Frost
(Poem #200)Desert Places Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast In a field I looked into going past, And the ground almost covered smooth in snow, But a few weeds and stubble showing last. The woods around it have it--it is theirs. All animals are smothered in their lairs. I am too absent-spirited to count; The loneliness includes me unawares. And lonely as it is that loneliness Will be more lonely ere it will be less-- A blanker whiteness of benighted snow With no expression, nothing to express. They cannot scare me with their empty spaces Between stars--on stars where no human race is. I have it in me so much nearer home To scare myself with my own desert places. |
Romantic Moment -- Tony Hoagland
(Poem #199)Romantic Moment After seeing the documentary we walk down Canyon Road, Into the plaza of art galleries and high end clothing stores Where the mock orange is fragrant in the summer light And the smooth adobe walls glow fleshlike in the dark. It is just our second date, and we sit down on a bench, Holding hands, not looking at each other, And if I were a bull penguin right now I would lean over And vomit softly into the mouth of my beloved And if I were a peacock I’d flex my gluteal muscles to Erect and spread the quills of my cinemax tail. If she were a female walkingstick bug she might Insert her hypodermic probiscus directly into my neck And inject me with a rich hormonal sedative Before attaching her egg sac to my thoracic undercarriage, And if I were a young chimpanzee I would break off a nearby treelimb And smash all the windows in the plaza jewelry stores. And if she was a Brazilian leopardfrog she would wrap her impressive Tongue three times around my right thigh and Pummel me softly against the surface of our pond And I would know her feelings were sincere. Instead we sit awhile in silence, until She remarks that in the relative context of tortoises and igunanas, Human males seem to be actually rather expressive And I say that female crocodiles really don’t receive Enough credit for their gentleness, Then she suggests that it is time for us to go To get some ice cream cones and eat them. |
Valentine -- Wendy Cope
(Poem #198)Valentine My heart has made its mind up And I’m afraid it’s you. Whatever you’ve got lined up, My heart has made its mind up And if you can’t be signed up This year, next year will do. My heart has made its mind up And I’m afraid it’s you. |
Math Is Beautiful and So Are You -- Becky Dennison Sakellariou
(Poem #197)Math Is Beautiful and So Are You If n is an even number then I’ll kiss you goodnight right here, but if the modulus k is the unique solution, I’ll take you in my arms for the long night. When the properties are constrained as well as incomplete, I’ll be getting off the train at this stop. However, if there is some positive constant, then I’ll stay on board for a while longer. When it says that the supremum deviates from the least zero, my heart closes off. But if all moments are infinite and you can hear me, I will open out for you. This sequence satisfies the hypothesis of uniformity, and because we know that approximation is possible and that inequality is an embedding factor, come, let’s try once more. |