Your Favorite Poems

[Lady_Di]

Southern trees bear strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the popular trees

Pastoral scene of the gallant south
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
[ From: http://www.elyrics.net/read/b/billie...it-lyrics.html ]
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop
Here is a strange and bitter cry


[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs"]Billie Holiday - Strange Fruit - YouTube[/nomedia]

[SoNotHer]

Here's to the teachers who make so much happen. This poem 'makes' you want to scream "Yes!"



http://www.slideshare.net/ethos3/wha...rs-make-515731

He says the problem with teachers is, "What's a kid going to learn
from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?"

He reminds the other dinner guests that it's true what they say about
teachers:

Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.

I decide to bite my tongue instead of his
and resist the temptation to remind the other dinner guests
that it's also true what they say about lawyers.

Because we're eating, after all, and this is polite company.

"I mean, you're a teacher, Taylor," he says.
"Be honest. What do you make?"

And I wish he hadn't done that
(asked me to be honest)
because, you see, I have a policy
about honesty and ass-kicking:
if you ask for it, I have to let you have it.

You want to know what I make?

I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.
I can make a C+ feel like a Congressional medal of honor
and an A- feel like a slap in the face.
How dare you waste my time with anything less than your very best.

I make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall
in absolute silence. No, you may not work in groups.
No, you may not ask a question.
Why won't I let you get a drink of water?
Because you're not thirsty, you're bored, that's why.

I make parents tremble in fear when I call home:
I hope I haven't called at a bad time,
I just wanted to talk to you about something Billy said today.
Billy said, "Leave the kid alone. I still cry sometimes, don't you?"
And it was the noblest act of courage I have ever seen.

I make parents see their children for who they are
and what they can be.

You want to know what I make?

I make kids wonder,
I make them question.
I make them criticize.
I make them apologize and mean it.
I make them write, write, write.
And then I make them read.
I make them spell definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful, definitely
beautiful
over and over and over again until they will never misspell
either one of those words again.
I make them show all their work in math.
And hide it on their final drafts in English.
I make them understand that if you got this (brains)
then you follow this (heart) and if someone ever tries to judge you
by what you make, you give them this (the finger).

Let me break it down for you, so you know what I say is true:
I make a goddamn difference! What about you?

[SoNotHer]

The Centaur

By May Swenson (1919 - 1989)

The summer that I was ten --
Can it be there was only one
summer that I was ten?

It must have been a long one then --
each day I'd go out to choose
a fresh horse from my stable

which was a willow grove
down by the old canal.
I'd go on my two bare feet.

But when, with my brother's jack-knife,
I had cut me a long limber horse
with a good thick knob for a head,

and peeled him slick and clean
except a few leaves for the tail,
and cinched my brother's belt

around his head for a rein,
I'd straddle and canter him fast
up the grass bank to the path,

trot along in the lovely dust
that talcumed over his hoofs,
hiding my toes, and turning

his feet to swift half-moons.
The willow knob with the strap
jouncing between my thighs

was the pommel and yet the poll
of my nickering pony's head.
My head and my neck were mine,

yet they were shaped like a horse.
My hair flopped to the side
like the mane of a horse in the wind.

My forelock swung in my eyes,
my neck arched and I snorted.
I shied and skittered and reared,

stopped and raised my knees,
pawed at the ground and quivered.
My teeth bared as we wheeled

and swished through the dust again.
I was the horse and the rider,
and the leather I slapped to his rump

spanked my own behind.
Doubled, my two hoofs beat
a gallop along the bank,

the wind twanged in my mane,
my mouth squared to the bit.
And yet I sat on my steed

quiet, negligent riding,
my toes standing the stirrups,
my thighs hugging his ribs.

At a walk we drew up to the porch.
I tethered him to a paling.
Dismounting, I smoothed my skirt

and entered the dusky hall.
My feet on the clean linoleum
left ghostly toes in the hall.

Where have you been? said my mother.
Been riding, I said from the sink,
and filled me a glass of water.

What's that in your pocket? she said.
Just my knife. It weighted my pocket
and stretched my dress awry.

Go tie back your hair, said my mother,
and Why Is your mouth all green?
Rob Roy, he pulled some clover
as we crossed the field, I told her.

[Glenn]

Mind Breezes

There is no life.
There is no death.
Nature will do
What it will.
A bird sings from upon a branch,
A brick wall is silent.
Species die,
Wind blows,
Mind breezes.

[Fancy]

Gather
by Rose McLarney

Some springs, apples bloom too soon.
The trees have grown here for a hundred years, and are still quick
to trust that the frost has finished. Some springs,
pink petals turn black. Those summers, the orchards are empty
and quiet. No reason for the bees to come.

Other summers, red apples beat hearty in the trees, golden apples
glow in sheer skin. Their weight breaks branches,
the ground rolls with apples, and you fall in fruit.

You could say, I have been foolish. You could say, I have been fooled.
You could say, Some years, there are apples

[Talon]

Each time I know beauty, it shall be through you.
When joy lifts me high...or sorrow breaks me,
When I love again,
My senses conditioned to you will be forgetting you anew.
Each kiss that fills my mouth shall fill it with your lips,
Yes, each time my eyelids crumble and close
Under blood's fired impact,
When love strikes home...yours will be the mouth.

[Talon]

BECOMING



Listen, heart
Listen close-listen
To the melancholy
Melody of your own voice
I am weary from my own dreaming
I am tired of waiting
So this time I'm leaping
I reach beyond myself to see
What I find beyond my mind
There is no time
In this place beyond my sight
My knows what is not yet seen
I'm witnessing my own becoming
Lash myself to the mantle of my desire-I will
Turn from it's temptations
But the wanting takes me higher
I am hurting
I am not yet born
I am the mother and the father
Of what is not yet known
Darkness surrounds me
I scratch, I struggle, I breathe
That's when suddenly
Everything fades and falls away
Because the chains that once held us...
Are only the chains we've made.

[gaea]

She said it didn't matter
All hy had to do was flatter

she said she didnt care
what hy chose to wear

When they arrived,
she said
Hys shoes don't match his socks, slacks or tie!
Oh me oh my
What's a girl to do?

I suggested
A shopping trip for two

gaea051812

[Kätzchen]

Encounter

We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.
A red wing rose in the darkness.

And suddenly a hare ran across the road.
One of us pointed to it with his hand.

That was not long ago. Today, neither of them is alive,
Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.

O my love, where are they, where are they going,
The flash of a hand, streak of a movement, rustle of pebbles.
I ask not out of sorrow, but in wonder.

-Cheslaw Milosz-

[Nurse Darlin]

I'm gonna try to recite from memory...appologize now if I get a few words wrong.

From childhoods 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
My heart to joy
At the same tone
And all that loved
I've loved alone.
Edgar Allen Poe

[Nurse Darlin]

I'm gonna try to recite from memory...appologize now if I get a few words wrong.

From childhoods 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
My heart to joy
At the same tone
And all that loved
I've loved alone.
Edgar Allen Poe

[Talon]

LOVE POEM FOR A NON-BELIEVER~by Sandra Cisneros



Because I miss you
I run my hand
Along the flat of my thigh
Curve of the hip
Mango of the a*s...Imagine
it's your hand
Across the thrum of ribs
Arpeggio of the breasts
Collarbones you adore that I don't

My neck is thin
You could cup it with one hand
Yank the life from me
If you wanted

I've cut my hair
You can't tug my hair anymore
A jet of black
Through the fingers now

Your hands cool
Along the jaw
Skin of the eyelids
Soft as a mouth

And when we open like apple
Split each other in half
And have seen the heart
Of the heart
That part that you don't...
I don't show anyone
The part we want to reel in

Back as soon as it
Is suddenly unreeled like silk
Flag or the prayer call
of a mohammed we won't
Have a word for this except
Perhaps religion.

[femmedyke]

The Laughing Heart by Charles Bukowski

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

[SoNotHer]

"To err is human; to forgive, divine."

And, "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

and the deliciously fun "Essay on Man."

From "An Essay on Man" -

"Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul;
Reason's comparing balance rules the whole.
Man, but for that, no action could attend,
And but for this, were active to no end:
Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot,
To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot;
Or, meteor-like, flame lawless through the void,
Destroying others, by himself destroy'd."

[Talon]

THE RIVAL~Sylvia Plath


If the moon smiled, she would resemble you
You leave the same impression
Of something beautiful, but annihilating.
Both of you are great light borrowers
Her O-mouth grieves at the world, yours is unaffected

And your first gift is making stone out of everything
I wake to a mausoleum, you are here
Ticking your fingers on the marble table, looking for cigarettes
Spiteful as a woman, but not so nervous
And dying to say something unanswerable

The moon, too, abases her subjects,
But in the daytime she is ridiculous
Your dissatisfactions, on the other hand,
Arrive through the mailslot with loving regularity
White and blank, expansive as carbon monoxide
No day is safe from news of you
Walking about in Africa maybe, but thinking of me.

[Talon]

GLOIRE de DIJON~D.H. Lawrence

When she rises in the morning
I linger to watch her
She spreads the bath-cloth underneath the window
Glistening white on the shoulders,
While down her sides the mellow
Golden shadow glows as
She stoops to the sponge, and her swung breasts
Sway like full-blown yellow
Gloire de Dijon roses.

[SoNotHer]

Queen-Anne’s Lace
By William Carlos Williams

Her body is not so white as
anemony petals nor so smooth—nor
so remote a thing. It is a field
of the wild carrot taking
the field by force; the grass
does not raise above it.
Here is no question of whiteness,
white as can be, with a purple mole
at the center of each flower.
Each flower is a hand’s span
of her whiteness. Wherever
his hand has lain there is
a tiny purple blemish. Each part
is a blossom under his touch
to which the fibres of her being
stem one by one, each to its end,
until the whole field is a
white desire, empty, a single stem,
a cluster, flower by flower,
a pious wish to whiteness gone over—
or nothing.

[SoNotHer]

Invictus

by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

[Fancy]

St. Francis And The Sow

The bud
stands for all things,
even those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as St. Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of
the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking
and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.


~ Galway Kinnell

[femmedyke]

Be Kind

we are always asked to understand the other person's viewpoint no matter how out-dated foolish or obnoxious.

one is asked to view their total error their life-waste with kindliness, especially if they are aged.

but age is the total of our doing. they have aged badly because they have lived out of focus, they have refused to see.

not their fault?

whose fault? mine?

I am asked to hide my viewpoint from them for fear of their fear.

age is no crime

but the shame of a deliberately wasted life

among so many deliberately wasted lives

is.

Charles Bukowski