Collection
Nothing
to be Scared of
by E.R. Snider
it was really scary
the wind pounding at my windows
making them whistle and shriek
and i thought they was gonna
shatter in two
and all at once outside this
great giant gray wolf appears
huffin and puffin his cheeks enormous
and spit flying everywhere
and i open my window and shout out
you aint got good manners mr wolf
im not a pig
you got the wrong house go away
but he dont listen
he too busy huffin and puffin
blowing at the trees
and i close the window
and latch it
and go back to readin my book
after all hes just a wolf
nothing to be scared of
from
Kismet
I sat down feeling desolated
Bowed my head and crossed my knees
Is fortune really predicated
On such tiny terms as these?
Then Fate's a thing without a head
A puzzle never understood
And
man proceeds where he is lead
Unguaranteed of bad or good.
To Know The Dark
by Wendell Berry
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without wings,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is travelled by dark feet, dark wings.
Homage
to Housman
by Nick
"That we come to this earth to live is untrue. We come but to sleep, to dream." - Aztec poem
We Come Only to Dream
15th century Aztec poem by Tochihuitzin Coyolchiuhqui
Thus spoke Tochihuitzin,
Thus spoke Coyolchiuhqui:
We only rise from sleep,
we come only to dream,
it is not true, it is not true,
that we come on earth to live.
As an herb in springtime,
so is our nature.
Our hearts give birth, make sprout
the flowers of our flesh.
Some open their corollas,
then they become dry.
Thus spoke Tochihuitzin
thus spoke Coyolchiuhqui.
Waka
Waka Bang Splat
a poem for techies
September
11: In Memory
by my daughter Rose, 16
For those we lost, for those we love,
For those who watch down from above,
For those who weep and those who cried,
For those who loved and mourned - and died:
In memory, we say our prayers
For worries, sorrows, hurts, and cares.
Shakespeare
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen
roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to
hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet
by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.
Shakespearean Hokey Pokey
O proud left foot, that ventures quick within
Then soon upon a backward journey lithe.
Anon, once more the gesture, then begin:
Command sinistral pedestal to writhe.
Commence
thou then the fervid Hokey-Poke,
A mad gyration, hips in wanton swirl.
To spin! A wilde release from Heavens yoke.
Blessed dervish! Surely canst go, girl.
The Hoke,
the poke -- banish now thy doubt
Verily, I say, 'tis what it's all about.
Sonnet
by Michael Drayton
Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part.
Nay, I have done, you get no more of me.
And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart
That thus so cleanly I myself can free.
Shake hands
forever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again,
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
Now at the
last gasp of Love's latest breath,
When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And Innocence is closing up his eyes --
Now, if
thou wouldst, when all have given him over,
From death to life thou mightst him yet recover.
Sonnet
141
Shakespeare
In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note,
But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,
Who in despite of view is pleased to dote.
Nor are
mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted,
Nor tender feeling to base touches prone,
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
To any sensual feast with thee alone;
But my five
wits nor my five senses can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,
Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be.
Only my
plague thus far I count my gain,
That she that makes me sin awards me pain.
by Garrison
Keillor
All of the lovers and the love they made —
Nothing that was between them was a mistake.
All that we did for love's sake
Was not wasted and will never fade.
Riddle
My arsenal is patience,
My sword is chalk,
My discipline is conscience,
My medium is talk;
My reservoir is history,
My greatest love is truth;
My highest art is alchemy,
Where lead to gold is youth.
What am I? Answer
Antithesis
How can this soundless beauty fall
From such a gray and sullen sky,
Covering the earth with samite fold
Of glistening white to daze the eye?
How can
a butterfly emerge
From pupa, but by nature's art;
How can a long dead love still weave
This fragile web that binds my heart?
from
The Garden of Prosperine
by Algernon Charles Swinburne
From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving,
Whatever gods may be,
That no man lives forever,
That dead men rise up never,
That even the weariest river,
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
Read the whole
poem
Requiem
by Robert Louis Stevenson
Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie:
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be
the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he long'd to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
The Dog
in Heaven
by Bruce D. Ario
Confronting the contradictions in the Bible
Was quite a proposition
For me - a wannabe Christian.
I didn't
like to see
Anything left out of something
So beautiful.
I'm referring
to Revelations.
I was okay with leaving out
Murderers, idolaters, even the sexually immoral,
But somehow I just couldn't agree with leaving out the dogs.
Sonnet
from the Vulcan: Omicron Ceti Three
by Shirley Meech
I thought the memory of you was gone.
I thought it buried underneath the years.
But now it rises, bright as Vulcan dawn,
And I remember you and Earth and tears.
Your tears
were falling like the rains of Earth;
You were the storms and roses of Earth's spring.
You could not know that, almost from my birth,
The rites of Vulcan bound me to T'Pring.
I could
not break those ties; I had no choice;
Returned to space, left you and Earth behind.
But still I heard the echo of your voice,
Found rain and wind and roses in my mind.
You told
me that you loved me and you cried.
I said I had no feelings. And I lied.
Fairy
Tale
by Miroslav Holub
He built himself a house,
his foundations,
his stones,
his walls,
his roof overhead,
his chimney and
smoke.
He made
himself a garden,
his fence,
his thyme,
his earthworm,
his evening dew.
He cut out his bit of sky above.
And he wrapped
the garden in the sky
and the house in the garden
and packed the lot in a handkerchief
and went
off
lone as an arctic fox
through the cold
unending
rain
into the world.
by A.E.
Housman
Loitering with a vacant eye
Along the Grecian gallery,
And brooding with my heavy ill,
I met a statue standing still.
Still in marble stone stood he,
And steadfastly he looked at me.
"Well met," I thought the look wold say, "
We both were fashioned far away;
We neither knew, when we were young,
These Londoners we live among."
Still he
stood and eyed me hard,
An earnest and a grave regard.
"What, lad, drooping with your lot?
I too would be where I am not.
I too survey that endless line
Of men whose thoughts are not as mine.
Years, ere you stood up from rest,
On my neck the collar pressed.
Years, when you lay down your ill,
I shall stand and bear it still.
Courage, lad, 'tis not for long.
Stand, quit you like stone, be strong."
So I thought his look would say;
And light on me my trouble lay.
And I stept out in flesh and bone
Manful like the man of stone.
Valentine
Poem
by Teresa Boyd
The greatest heart I've ever known,
The brightest and the best,
Must be the largest ever grown,
In all the east or west.
Its beauty does amaze me,
It's kind and loyal and true,
But the finest thing about it is
That heart belongs to you!