Poet's Corner

[midcan5]

"Nearing Xmas Eve! I don't know why--since I'm not a believer in the conventional sense--but every year around this time I end up standing here, pausing before this gray, hulking building with so many of its tall, stained glass windows darkened and lit only by floodlights from outside of it, but with twin spires still pointing towards heaven. Tonight I can see only a single light still shining--in a half-open casement window located on the second floor. "Hello, hello," I call out, "Anybody around up there?--anybody home tonight?" Silhouetted at the casement window, a head appears. "Sure, we're open all night tonight all right--but this isn't a church anymore," the head shouts back in a decidedly irritated voice. "Didn't you know?--our entire operation was finally taken over last year--we were shut down for a while and then re-opened again converted to a peanut-brittle factory," "But don't I recognize you, Sir," I call back--"aren't you the former Sexton?" "Yes," the head says, after we were converted the takeover people thought it would be wise for the sake of efficiency to retain some of the same personnel for a while, so together with some of my staff, I agreed to stay on for a bit." "Does that include God, too?" I hear myself calling back to the former Sexton. "Sure it does," the Sexton shouts back, "have a Merry Christmas!"--and his head disappears from the window. Then I see no silhouetted head much less face, and hear a far deeper and far more resonant voice: "My Son, my Son--we've been putting you on, my Son. But you know you should really come up here anyway--you know in your heart that for all He's ever meant to you, Christ might as well have been a part-time worker in a peanut-brittle factory!" Then suddenly the casement window slams shut. "Oh My God!" I hear myself cry out--"Could that have been God Himself up there? And if so, was He genuinely angry with me, personally?" On the way up the stairs to find out--trembling slightly I must confess--I meet an angel. He's coming down the stairs after apparently just knocking off from working on the night-shift somewhere upstairs. He's beaming radiantly; his wings are folded neatly behind him and he's licking his lips; his cheeks are covered up with peanut-butter and candy and look like two big chocolate chip cookies; and there's a big blob of marshmallow on the tip of his nose...."

Michael Benedikt

 

[midcan5]

For those of you who grew up in similar circumstances I hope you share during this brief life. Not a poem just a kid extremely happy to have someone think of them. Enjoy, don't cry, and Merry Christmas.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UPOMhvU-8Q]Happy Christmas from Darren Hayes - YouTube[/ame]

 

[midcan5]

'People You May Know'

"This weekend, I noticed my dead grandfather’s
Facebook profile is still up. He was suggested as a friend,
an offer I never took up even while he was alive
because I can’t imagine something more awkward
than being Facebook friends with your grandpa.

He died last year and, according to his page
with its blue default silhouette profile image,
he graduated in 1942 from DeVilbiss High School.
His occupation is “retired,” and he was born in Toledo.
That’s what’s left of my grandfather on Facebook.

I thought, someone should take it down.
And by someone, I mean anyone who is not me.
He was a complicated man, or technically,
an impressively high-functioning alcoholic, but
either way, a ghost shouldn’t have a Facebook page.

Typing that—or reading it now—makes me feel haunted.
An old man with a bald head, sweater and glasses
menacing over my shoulder grouchy and boiling.
Grouchy because he’s tied to this earthly realm
by a stupid Facebook page he made on a whim.

And now here, look at me, I wrote a poem about it."

Patrick Dutcher

 

[midcan5]

'Rua'

"Morning lazy sounds
nothing much except birds
and a car maybe passes
sky a clear blue with dabs of cloud sorbet
above white, hand-curved stucco
dark blue shutters, interlocked tile roof
one guy pushes a car downhill,
another steers, a woman comes
out of her gate, loads her trunk
with a blanket on top, closes it
a car from the auto escola drives by
a butterfly flits around a garden
a man begins tying rope
to the bottom of his truck
while his dog peers over the side
the man begins attaching the rope
to a car behind the truck, lying on the asphalt,
and the white, black-eared dog
scratches at the truck's window happily
a pregnant woman gets out
of the car into the truck
attempts to drive it away
but the rope comes untied from the car
she backs up, and they try again
the second time, they get half a block
a man pulls up in a black Volkswagen Voyage
and goes into the pharmacy
as a woman comes out
two men walk up the sidewalk
followed by another, an old man
in the sun on the other side, in sandals
there is a rhythm in the way
things continue, one after another
on a Saturday morning
it is not hurried, and there is enough
space between each act to keep it
separate, they don't blend into
each other, but slowly accumulate
as pieces of a life no one noticed"

Vincent Katz

 

[midcan5]

Richard Blanco's Poetry Pays Homage to American Experience

'One Today'

"One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,
peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces
of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth
across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.
One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story
told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning's mirrors,
each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:
pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,
fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows
begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper—
bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,
on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives—
to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did
for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,
the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:
equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,
the "I have a dream" we keep dreaming,
or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won't explain
the empty desks of twenty children marked absent
today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light
breathing color into stained glass windows,
life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth
onto the steps of our museums and park benches
as mothers watch children slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk
of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat
and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills
in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands
digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands
as worn as my father's cutting sugarcane
so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains
mingled by one wind—our breath. Breathe. Hear it
through the day's gorgeous din of honking cabs,
buses launching down avenues, the symphony
of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,
the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,
or whispers across café tables, Hear: the doors we open
for each other all day, saying: hello, shalom,
buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos días
in the language my mother taught me—in every language
spoken into one wind carrying our lives
without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed
their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked
their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:
weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report
for the boss on time, stitching another wound
or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,
or the last floor on the Freedom Tower
jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes
tired from work: some days guessing at the weather
of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love
that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother
who knew how to give, or forgiving a father
who couldn't give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight
of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home,
always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon
like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop
and every window, of one country—all of us—
facing the stars
hope—a new constellation
waiting for us to map it,
waiting for us to name it—together."

Richard Blanco

 

[midcan5]

'God Knows I Want To Be Good'

"That’s why last year I went out with Michael
who drove a white Prius
and wore beige vegetarian shoes. And when
we’d meet at a tofu bistro the same distance
from both of our houses, we’d go dutch because
we knew the importance of sexual equality. We had good
conversations, talked about dwindling
rainforests and fragile ecosystems. We liked
the same movies and poems.
God knows I want to be good, so I tried
to ignore that boorish guy Mark at the party who bragged
that he once caught a trout with his bare hands. I mean,
what an asshole, what a hairy-chest-beating
Neanderthal. So why did I let him
pull me into the bathroom, shove those
fish-snatching hands under my shirt?
The other day, a friend told me that Michael’s
engaged. I said good, good for him,
and nodded my head like a chicken. As for Mark,
it’s been a whole week since the night I groped
around on his bedroom floor in search
of my underwear. Tonight, I lie
by the window, my body still
humming like a long dial tone
in the dark."

Jackleen Holton

 

[midcan5]

'Einstein’s Happiest Moment'

"Einstein’s happiest moment
occurred when he realized
a falling man falling
beside a falling apple
could also be described
as an apple and a man at rest
while the world falls around them.

And my happiest moment
occurred when I realized
you were falling for me,
right down to the core, and the rest,
relatively speaking, has flown past
faster than the speed of light."

Richard M. Berlin

 

[midcan5]

'Cement Backyard'

"My father had our yard cemented over.
He couldn’t tell a flower from a weed.
The neighbors let their backyards run to clover
and some grew dappled gardens from a seed,

but he preferred cement to rampant green.
Lushness reeked of anarchy’s profusion.
Better to tamp the wildness down, unseen,
than tolerate its careless brash intrusion.

The grass interred, he felt well satisfied:
his first house, and he took an owner’s pride,
surveying the uniform, cemented yard.
Just so, he labored to cement his heart."

Lynne Sharon Schwartz

 

[freedombecki]

Always loved this one:

Desiderata
by Max Ehrmann, 1927

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace
there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly,
and listen to others,
even to the dull and ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be
greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career
however humble;
it is a real possession in the
changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you
to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit
to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself
with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore, be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham,
drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.​

 

[Capstone]

You, Andrew Marvell

And here face down beneath the sun
And here upon earth’s noonward height
To feel the always coming on
The always rising of the night:

To feel creep up the curving east
The earthy chill of dusk and slow
Upon those underlands the vast
And ever climbing shadow grow

And strange at Ecbatan the trees
Take leaf by leaf the evening strange
The flooding dark about their knees
The mountains over Persia change

And now at Kermanshah the gate
Dark empty and the withered grass
And through the twilight now the late
Few travelers in the westward pass

And Baghdad darken and the bridge
Across the silent river gone
And through Arabia the edge
Of evening widen and steal on

And deepen on Palmyra’s street
The wheel rut in the ruined stone
And Lebanon fade out and Crete
High through the clouds and overblown

And over Sicily the air
Still flashing with the landward gulls
And loom and slowly disappear
The sails above the shadowy hulls

And Spain go under and the shore
Of Africa the gilded sand
And evening vanish and no more
The low pale light across that land

Nor now the long light on the sea:

And here face downward in the sun
To feel how swift how secretly
The shadow of the night comes on...​

​

--Archibald MacLeish, Collected Poems 1917-1982--​

 

[midcan5]

'Enough'

"Spring comes early and completely to the South.
So many forget-me-nots, with their white centers,
scattered, you’d say, if there weren’t
so many everywhere, as many as the stars
last night in between the branches
on the porch in the side yard next to the house.
Was it an argument or were there just
things they had to say?
I could have faith in so many creatures—
the old setter from the neighbor yard
who follows me around the corner
and no longer, the chick with its new beak
just past breakable whose lighter topfeathers
have a bit of flight, any mother bear—
you say things and the next day
it’s like they don’t matter, we want our faces
to alter though we don’t want to get older, neither
do we want to get younger, repetition
with less knowledge is ridiculous,
just ask the Greeks, you get to keep
being a tree but without the branch
that showed the sky your starlike shape?
I don’t think so. Steadiness can be useful,
but my loyalty loves a form
that will follow me through changes.
At a diagonal the dark woods
on the backslope have enough space
to walk between, not enough to hide.
He looks into them
and writes notes to his mother, she
looks into them and finds alignment,
or looks for what she wants.
She has a human skeleton on her desk.
He has a protractor. I had wishes
for both of them yesterday
but the weather has since become so kindly,
so temperate, I forget what blessings
they don’t think they have.
I am a guest in this house. I didn’t go inside
until I heard the ending of the argument."

Katie Peterson

 

[midcan5]

'Junk'

—at the annual world’s longest yard sale

"We had to park a mile away: the truck
my buddy drove like a redneck Charon.
We were always restless in the boondocks.

We were tragically horny. No standards
of emission, the big-block engine belched
and leaked its oil, its unleaded bloodwork

down the rusty undercarriage. We knew
the grass below would brown like a photo.
It was August. Signs swore cockamamie

discounts, a full day’s worth of distraction.
Gothic statues graced the highway’s exit:
a bare-chested chief in headdress, his arm

raised in endless How; a pink elephant
crunked on some jumbo Cosmopolitan.
We heard the banjo and gut-bucket band,

moos and bleats from the fetid petting-zoo.
We met jugglers, peddlers, and face-painters.
We both made a beaded cross for Jesus.

(O, you plain-faced girls with righteous booties!
This was not like Mule Day. Even Mule Day
was not like Mule Day.) I had hoped to buy

some penny-loafers, a lamp, a pick-axe.
I had hoped to tell him I was leaving.
He was my old friend. He was an orphan.

His name was like a nest, full of sorrow.
After his mother’s death, I held his head,
as snug as a gunbutt, to my shoulder."

Michael Marberry

 

[Skull Pilot]

I generally dislike poetry but I do like

If by Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!

 

[midcan5]

'Microcosmos'

"When we first started looking through microscopes
a cold fear blew and it’s still blowing.
Life hitherto had been frantic enough
in all its shapes and dimensions.
Which is why it created small-scale creatures,
assorted tiny worms and flies,
but at least the naked human eye
could see them.

But then suddenly beneath the glass,
foreign to a fault
and so petite,
that what they occupy in space
can only charitably be called a spot.

The glass doesn’t even touch them,
they double and triple unobstructed,
with room to spare, willy-nilly.

To say they’re many isn’t saying much.
The stronger the microscope
the more exactly, avidly they’re multiplied.

They don’t even have decent innards.
They don’t know gender, childhood, age.
They may not even know they are—or aren’t.
Still they decide our life and death.

Some freeze in momentary stasis,
although we don’t know what their moment is.
Since they’re so minuscule themselves,
their duration may be
pulverized accordingly.

A windborne speck of dust is a meteor
from deepest space,
a fingerprint is a farflung labyrinth
where they may gather
for their mute parades,
their blind iliads and upanishads.

I’ve wanted to write about them for a long while,
but it’s a tricky subject,
always put off for later
and perhaps worthy of a better poet,
even more stunned by the world than I.
But time is short. I write."

Wislawa Szymborska

 

[midcan5]

Support Home - DAV (Disabled American Veterans) "A veteran, whether active duty, retired, national guard, or reserve, is someone who, at one point of their life, signed a blank check made payable to "The United States of America", for an amount of 'up to and including my life. " anon

- repost -

'Memorial Day for the War Dead'

"Memorial day for the war dead. Add now
the grief of all your losses to their grief,
even of a woman that has left you. Mix
sorrow with sorrow, like time-saving history,
which stacks holiday and sacrifice and mourning
on one day for easy, convenient memory.

Oh, sweet world soaked, like bread,
in sweet milk for the terrible toothless God.
"Behind all this some great happiness is hiding."
No use to weep inside and to scream outside.
Behind all this perhaps some great happiness is hiding.

Memorial day. Bitter salt is dressed up
as a little girl with flowers.
The streets are cordoned off with ropes,
for the marching together of the living and the dead.
Children with a grief not their own march slowly,
like stepping over broken glass.

The flautist's mouth will stay like that for many days.
A dead soldier swims above little heads
with the swimming movements of the dead,
with the ancient error the dead have
about the place of the living water.

A flag loses contact with reality and flies off.
A shopwindow is decorated with
dresses of beautiful women, in blue and white.
And everything in three languages:
Hebrew, Arabic, and Death.

A great and royal animal is dying
all through the night under the jasmine
tree with a constant stare at the world.

A man whose son died in the war walks in the street
like a woman with a dead embryo in her womb.
"Behind all this some great happiness is hiding.""

Yehuda Amichai

 

[SmartRafal]

"Use of Human Beings"


Man looking for, goes to the unwanted stuff
Things that break down it constantly
Living in the world of hypocritical, Feeling Feelings
Which is perfectly played, Looking for Actors
I can see the card through them committed errors
Opening to be cheated
In writing this, Me pen is broken
Such is the fate, unwanted

Rafał Świtała

 

[SmartRafal]

"Landscape"

What is a landscape? A picture on the wall? A view of the mountains?
Or maybe ... The space, filled with oxygen ... ?
Landscape, there is something that gives it life.
Everything in the landscape alive. Wind suitable trees and water movement;
Trees produce oxygen for us and we can live. Everything has a purpose;
The ambiance of landscaping is to give life, and you people;
You are destroying it. Looking for comfort, make your heedless of the consequences.
Nature gives life, but you are destroying them. Accounts for it in the image, and then you destroy.
Artists - Painters reveal a landscape so as to give life a blank piece of paper.
They paint images so that whoever looks at them, he imagined it to be there,
he sees movement leaves, a gust of wind on the water, falling stream of water from the mountains.
They paint in order to give life, because the artists are different from ordinary people.
Each artist will give inspiration to life by even the most lifeless thing.

Rafał Świtała.

 

[SmartRafal]

"Puppet"

Man is born naked and after birth gets a slap on the butt for welcome. Starting crawl, then trying to walk. Every time you fall, rise and will try to continue.

When you have to learn to forget how to walk and will not have a problem with it.

Move phase of growing up, grow and become strong.

When it is developed enough to his power and strength to solve their problems, he begins to go to work.

He works hard, and the time it continually grows old.

Few earn and live in debt.

You pay taxes to the government. Earns the state, and the country still do not see the changes.

Where this is so wander the means of payment? For bank accounts abroad, those who rule the Country.

Democracy say, everyone in government says vote for me!

I'll do this and that, and how you can not see the changes, so too does hear. Corruption, theft, violence, gambling, hookers and sex All that this little Polish.

Had to think that man has achieved in his life and what he did, and how much he could do and what he could achieve - then realizes that missed a whole życie.Życie, which is more valuable than the world.

Because the world is alive because of us.

The world is alive because we move it, circling the globe in an ellipse around the sun, which stands on the site, and it is life-giving warmth of the plants, the earth, all living beings, as well as and other planets.

When it is, there comes a moon that shines its splendor star.

Each star is like the soul, which shows how long the universe exists.

He who believes in God, so is his will.

I believe that is something that makes life even in the worst situation is excellent.

I do not know whether God Is Power Do other things make us molecule something that is alien to us, something that is unknown to us, is so far the only unit that we do not know.

It is in the universe and evaluates every being and the world.

It decides the fate of every living creature or dead. Suitable purpose of life and it decides.

This is something or someone is in a place where not even reach beyond the barrier nieśmiertelnik.Jest our capabilities.

Creates the border, which does not exceed one. Few survived retirement, but those who persevered and live retreated in development, because they thought that if they worked hard at it, it's time to rest and just bought a big-screen TV and looked at what the world society sticks to your head.

Man looks at the TV to be able to experience emotions perfectly played by actors.

The film is a film, in fact it is not experiencing time.Instead Someone will look at in addition played emocje.Emocje false and deceitful, that most people pragnie.Jest a saying that, I recognize the poor man after a big-screen TV he has a rich man after How much is he bibliotekę.Police their assigned duties doing.Hold People who live life to the fullest and know how to use it. Stops on those found guilty, and sometimes not at fault. Alcohol, drugs, drugs all lead to the destruction of human life, which is the essence of doskonałą.Addictive, why do not you want to help the sick? Disease is contagious and is spreading like mushrooms proliferating in lesie.President wonders, wonders why in Poland are so that type of people. Why do not know how to help them? Then it is clad on the back burner and deal with issues outside Country. I tell you to be rich should give, but to be able to give you first take from life.

The one who gives the rich is becoming.

Anyone who thinks about people and loved ones become a scientist. scientist who gives, who is thinking about human needs, which mean how people's lives easier, rich in staje. Wealth it is necessary to use full of life. life offers us everythings. Needs to want. Needs just reach out, reach inside yourself, take ideas, which at first are crazy. Human who thinks about something that is important, in fact, a man enlightened. Human who has ideas that are ready for implementation. Man is a being who has a soul, body, mind and Instinct. If man looks in the depths of all these four characteristics, it would find itself wealth.

Rafał Świtała.

 

[SmartRafal]

"Fall in love"

Precious Hair, Eyes shining, eyes large;
Figure models, big breasts, round shapes - simply perfect;
Flawless face, covered with pride, but not exalting in her;
Mouth passionate, smiling and attractive;
The heart beats faster as the music alternative;
Soul filled with happiness and hope;
Life more beautiful, sharper colors;
The magic that attracts each other like a magnet;
The feeling is great, and even exaggerated;
Fall in love with it so as to be born anew;
The newly create something out of nothing;
It's like looking in the boundless, spectacular scenery;
It's like being at the Summit of Mount Everest and observe the world;
It is a condition in which there is euphoria, which goads us into action;
It is a state that does not last forever, but it is worth the sacrifice of life;
It's something that makes our life is such, what we dreamed about;
It's something that makes referring success in life.
Falling in love is something that is perfect, flawless, perfect in its duration.

Rafał Świtała.

 

[SmartRafal]

"Splendor Day in Egypt"

At sea, boats, seagulls in the air, on the beach, people in love;
The sun shines brightly even on the west;
Egyptians in their fancy garments dressed;
Sea beautifully adorned with coral reefs;
There is a pure soul, does not explode like dynamite;
Pyramids of his perfection intact;
You have to live by their own rules;
You have to feel the greatest emotions;
You have to spend time so nice to have mentioned it.
Molecule must be something new.

Rafał Świtała.