Your Favorite Poems

[Nat]

Ordinary Heartbreak, David Levine

She climbs easily on the box
That seats her above the swivel chair
At adult height, crosses her legs, left ankle over right,
Smoothes the plastic apron over her lap
While the beautician lifts her ponytail and laughs,
"This is coarse as a horse's tail."
And then as if that's all there is to say,
The woman at once whacks off and tosses
its foot and a half into the trash.

And the little girl who didn't want her hair cut,
But long ago learned successfully how not to say
What it is she wants,
Who, even at this minute cannot quite grasp
her shock and grief,
Is getting her hair cut. "For convenience," her mother put it.
The long waves gone that had been evidence at night,
When loosened from their clasp,
She might secretly be a princess.

Rather than cry out, she grips her own wrist
And looks to her mother in the mirror.
But her mother is too polite, or too reserved,
So the girl herself takes up indifference,
While pain follows a hidden channel to a deep place
Almost unknown in her,
Convinced as she is, that her own emotions are not the ones
her life depends on,
She shifts her gaze from her mother's face
Back to the haircut now,
So steadily as if this short-haired child were someone else.

[evolveme]

For six months I dealt Baccarat in a casino.
For six months I played Brahms in a mall.
For six months I arranged museum dioramas;
my hands were too small for the Paleolithic
and when they reassigned me to lichens, I quit.
I type ninety-one words per minute, all of them
Help. Yes, I speak Dewey Decimal.
I speak Russian, Latin, a smattering of Tlingit.
I can balance seven dinner plates on my arm.
All I want to do is sit on a veranda while
a hard rain falls around me. I'll file your 1099s.
I'll make love to strangers of your choice.
I'll do whatever you want, as long as I can do it
on that veranda. If it calls you, it's your calling,
right? Once I asked a broker what he loved
about his job, and he said Making a killing.
Once I asked a serial killer what made him
get up in the morning, and he said The people.

[evolveme]

Deep in the Boogie Down—
the bassinet of the boom bap
where the trinity is The Treacherous Three,

English is the third language
behind Bronx and Puerto Rican,
and I was nervous

because I only speak Catholic school
and I'm a Red Sox fan.

I'm just a student of KRS-1, not a son,

on a train fourteen stops beyond my comfort
zone hiding behind headphones coughing
bass, and a backpack full of lyrics:

Notorious B.I.G., Rakim, Perdomo,
Run DMC, Brooks, wanting to be real cool,

wanting to be their "dawg"—
but feeling like a mailman,
another Elvis

to the students I will lead
through a workshop in a language

I itch to get my rusted cavities around.

[chefhottie25]

Originally Posted by evolveme

Deep in the Boogie Down—
the bassinet of the boom bap
where the trinity is The Treacherous Three,

English is the third language
behind Bronx and Puerto Rican,
and I was nervous

because I only speak Catholic school
and I'm a Red Sox fan.

I'm just a student of KRS-1, not a son,

on a train fourteen stops beyond my comfort
zone hiding behind headphones coughing
bass, and a backpack full of lyrics:

Notorious B.I.G., Rakim, Perdomo,
Run DMC, Brooks, wanting to be real cool,

wanting to be their "dawg"—
but feeling like a mailman,
another Elvis

to the students I will lead
through a workshop in a language

I itch to get my rusted cavities around.

what a great poem. i totally dig it.

[FeminineAllure]

“Being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect. It means that you've decided to look beyond the imperfections.”

[BestButchBoy]

Death is not the end
Death can never be the end.
Death is the road.
Life is the traveller.
...
The Soul is the Guide
...
Our mind thinks of death.
Our heart thinks of life
Our soul thinks of Immortality.

By: Sri Chinmoy

[Mitmo01]

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Christopher Marlowe


Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of th purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my love.

The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.