Your Favorite Poems

[SoNotHer]

Sympathy
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats its wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!

[SoNotHer]

New Year's
by Dana Gioia

Let other mornings honor the miraculous.
Eternity has festivals enough.
This is the feast of our mortality,
The most mundane and human holiday.

On other days we misinterpret time,
Pretending that we live the present moment.
But can this blur, this smudgy in-between,
This tiny fissure where the future drips

Into the past, this flyspeck we call now
Be our true habitat? The present is
The leaky palm of water that we skim
From the swift, silent river slipping by.

The new year always brings us what we want
Simply by bringing us along—to see
A calendar with every day uncrossed,
A field of snow without a single footprint.

[Truly Scrumptious]

And somewhere,
inside the usual grammar
of morning,

between all the shortest syllables
of clock ring & water boil
egg tap & salt shake

you discover
you are
this body
that loves her

Even though
your finest words are gone
leaving only the smallest bones
the metatarsals
the humble feet
of your love
to beat out their passions
on two rough heels

It happens here
over tea,
sun shoots one flawless arrow
across the tip of your spoon
and into hers
-the way she looks up
over the rim of her cup
one green eye,
then two

& suddenly
all four corners
of your world
meet here;
in the central moon
of your saucer

perfect alchemy

and it is then
that you swap
the ordinary floss
of morning
for a glimpse
of what the love
of this body
will be

~ Chaia Heller

[Kätzchen]

A Beautiful Stranger

At a mirror, naked, pleasing to herself
You really were pretty; let that moment last.
The rose-brown shield of your breasts,
A belly with a black tuft just recently grown.
And they would dress you immediately in languishing
Blouses, slips, wispy robes with trains.
You wore a corset in a fashionable shade of lilac,
On your thighs garters like the straps on armor.
They hung on you layers of ridiculous fabrics
So that you could take part in their theater
of pretended ecstasies, smutty allusions.
A slave; and such you remained in the photograph
Dimmed by emulsion and the coloring of time.
Did you rebel? Yes, it is quite possible.
To know for yourself, not to tell anybody
And from the nothingness of their words,
To protect the wisdom of your mocking body.

And I; am I now liberated
from those rituals, masks, the floodlights of the ball?
Have I escaped the law that draws me
into frozen fashions, half-dead manners?

I would like to save you, beautiful stranger.
Together we depart for eternal meadows.
You are naked again, and fifteen years old.
I take you by the hand, your promised one.
Think that nothing will happen to you
That was suppose to happen,
That you can be different,
That you are your own,
And not arrested by the exactness of fate.

Czeslaw Milosz

[Hollylane]

Phenomenal Woman
by Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

[mustangjeano]

Why do I like horses. I think I must be mad.
My Mother wasn't horsey--and neither was my Dad.

But the madness hit me early- and it hit me like a curse.
And I've never gotten better. In fact I've gotten worse.

I hardly read a paper- but I know whose sold their horse.
And I wouldn't watch the news-Unless Mr. Ed was on- of course.

One eye's always on the heavens-But my washing waves in vain
As I rush to get the horses in-in case it's gonna rain.

I spend up every cent I've got - on horsey stuff for sure
I buy saddles, bridles, fancy boots- and the I buy some more

I can't sew a button- I don't even try
But I can back a truck and trailer- in the twinkling of an eye

It's jeans and boots that I live in night and day
And that smell of sweaty horses just doesn't wash away

But late at night when all is still- and I've gone to give them hay
I touch their velvet softness and my worries float away

They give a gentle nicker and they nuzzle thru my hair
And I know it's where my heart is-more here than anywhere

author unknown

[SoNotHer]

May the Poe-toaster rise again, and may the Ravens win, win, win.

Alone
By Edgar Allan Poe

From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow—I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone—
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that ’round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d me flying by—
From the thunder, and the storm—
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view—

[Hollylane]

I was going to thank the Edgar Allen Poe portion of that post, but I couldn't separate it from the "Ravens" portion...I'm just sayin'...