Your Favorite Poems

[puddin']

i stood watching
as you crossed the street
for the last time.
trying hard to memorize you.
knowing it would be important.
the way you walked,
the way you looked back over you shoulder at me.

years later
i would hear the singing of the wind
and the day's singing would come back.
that time of going would return to me
every sun-gray day.
april or august it would be the same
for years to come.

man has not made the kind of bromide
that would let me sleep without your memory
or written erotically enough
to erase the excitement of just your hands.

these long years later it is worse
for i remember what it was
as well as what it might have been.

[Hollylane]

The Night Piece

by Thom Gunn

The fog drifts slowly down the hill
And as I mount gets thicker still,
Closes me in, makes me its own
Like bedclothes on the paving stone.

Here are the last few streets to climb,
Galleries, run through veins of time,
Almost familiar, where I creep
Toward sleep like fog, through fog like sleep.

[Hollylane]

I Am Your Mother


I am your Mother, do you not hear my heart beat,
Can you not feel the love I send;
Was not the air you breathed, my scent so sweet,
Is my pain hard for you to comprehend.

Upon my body snow lays soft and white,
Beneath my skin the future sleeps;
My blood flows to nurture and delight,
Into the ground it deeply seeps.

Mountains tall, clouds wreath my crests,
Rolling hills once wooded thick;
Gentle prairies too were once lush with grass,
Where did my bounty go so quick.

Sandy beaches and rock girded shore,
Where ocean waters sweep and crash;
A land of beauty, once so pure,
Marred by man's actions heedless and rash.

All this beauty was yours to behold,
Your duty was to love, cherish and protect;
Feel my anguish, the pain in my soul,
All I asked was your respect.

I am your Mother.

Wazi Nagi, 'Pine Tree Soul'

[Hollylane]

The Highway

by W. S. Merwin

It seems too enormous just for a man to be
Walking on. As if it and the empty day
Were all there is. And a little dog
Trotting in time with the heat waves, off
Near the horizon, seeming never to get
Any farther. The sun and everything
Are stuck in the same places, and the ditch
Is the same all the time, full of every kind
Of bone, while the empty air keeps humming
That sound it has memorized of things going
Past. And the signs with huge heads and starved
Bodies, doing dances in the heat,
And the others big as houses, all promise
But with nothing inside and only one wall,
Tell of other places where you can eat,
Drink, get a bath, lie on a bed
Listening to music, and be safe. If you
Look around you see it is just the same
The other way, going back; and farther
Now to where you came from, probably,
Than to places you can reach by going on.

[Hollylane]

Wrong Turn

by Luci Shaw

I took a wrong turn the other day.
A mistake, but it led me to the shop where I found
the very thing I'd been searching for.

With my brother I opened a packet
of old letters from my mother and saw a side of her
that sweetened what had been deeply sour.

Later that day the radio sang a song from
a time when I was discovering love,
and folded me into itself again.

[Hominid]

More than my favorite poem, also my modus operandus - I guess not technically a poem, but here it is anyway

Whitman, from "Leaves of Grass":

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”

[puddin']

west wind #2

you are young. so you know everything. you leap
into the boat and begin rowing. but listen to me.
without fanfare, without embarrassment, without
any doubt, i talk directly to your soul. listen to me.
lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and
your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to
me. there is life without love. it is not worth a bent
penny, or a scuffed shoe. it is not worth the body of a
dead dog nine days unburied. when you hear, a mile
away and still out of sight, the churn of the water
as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the
sharp rocks – when you hear that unmistakable
pounding – when you feel the mist on your mouth
and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls
plunging and steaming – then row, row for your life
toward it.
"

[puddin']

west wind #2

you are young. so you know everything. you leap
into the boat and begin rowing. but listen to me.
Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without
any doubt,iI talk directly to your soul. listen to me.
lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and
your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to
me. there is life without love. it is not worth a bent
penny, or a scuffed shoe. it is not worth the body of a
dead dog nine days unburied. when you hear, a mile
away and still out of sight, the churn of the water
as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the
sharp rocks – when you hear that unmistakable
pounding – when you feel the mist on your mouth
and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls
plunging and steaming – then row, row for your life
toward it.
"

[Semantics]

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.


by Wendell Berry

[Hollylane]

Perennial
by April Lindner


You surprise me at noon.

We undress quickly,
meet under the faded blanket.
There's your familiar taste,

comforting as toast,
your skin's texture, soft lips
I'd know in utter darkness.

Your articulate tongue.

How many times
have we found each other
just like this? A homecoming.

Like the peonies that spill
from the earth each July—
the ornate layers

that fold inward, protective
of some luscious secret.

Around us, the house
holds its breath. The dogs
resign themselves to the rug.

So many days
we lose each other
in labyrinths of worry and work,

in detours so intricate
it seems we might never
find our way back

to this bed our bodies shaped.

[grenade]

Ghazal

You with the dark burly hair and the breathtaking eyes,
your inquiring glance that leaves me undone.

Eyes that pierce and then withdraw like a blood-stained sword,
eyes with dagger lashes!
Zealots, you are mistaken - this is heaven.

Never mind those making promises of the afterlife:
join us now, righteous friends, in this intoxication.

Never mind the path to the Kaabah: sanctity resides in the heart.
Squander your life, suffer! God is right here.

Oh excruciating face! Continual light!
This is where I am thrilled, here, right here.

There is no book anywhere on the matter.
Only as soon as I see you do I understand.
If you wish to offer your beauty to God, give Zebunisso
a taste. Awaiting the tiniest morsel, she is right here.


Zebunisso (1639-1706)

[Martina]

I really don't have favorite anything. Desert island, yes.

This is neither. I just read it recently and liked it. I like art about age and aging. And I certainly like Stephen Dunn.

Sisyphus in the Suburbs
Stephen Dunn

It was late and the wine had wet
an aridity he'd forgotten he had.
He could feel the evening
arching above the house,
a good black dome. No ledges,
he realized, tempted him.
The once-inviting abyss
was now just a view.

Sisyphus put another CD on
and stroked the cat.
His wife was in Bermuda
with her younger sister,
celebrating the death
of winter, and a debt paid.
Her missed her, and he did not.

He'd been mixing Janis Joplin
with Brahms, accountable now
to no one. The lights
from some long-desired festival
were not calling him.
No silent dog or calm ocean
made him fear the next moment.

But Sisyphus was amazed
how age sets in, how it just came
one day and stayed. And how far
away the past gets. His break
from the gods, just an episode now.

Tomorrow he'd brave the cold,
spireless mall, look for a gift.
He'd walk through the unappeasable
crowds as if some right thing
were findable and might be bestowed.

[-Red-Flag-]

Have I ever told you
that if I sit really still and silent,
sometimes. I like to think
I can hear your heart beating
in time with mine?

Have I ever told you
that when I watch you speak to me
through lines and cords,
and bytes and ram,
I imagine
your voice,
whispering into my ear?

Have I ever told you
that I wait out each day
in anticipation,
wanting
only an hour or two,
just a second in space and time,
to feel close to you?

Have I ever told you
that there has been times,
when I ached for you,
ached for you so badly,
that the emotions overwhelmed me..
and so I sat and cried?

Have I ever told you
that sometimes,
I will reach out,
touching your name
on this cold screen before me,
wishing
I could reach in
and pull you to me?

Have I ever told you
that I would give everything up,
just for one night
to be able to lay near you,
to feel your chest rise and fall
with each breath you take,
just to know that you are real?

Have I ever told you
that I dream of you often,
I dream of you reaching out
and touching my hand,
simply to let me know
that you are there,
and everything is okay?

Have I ever told you,
have I still yet to tell you . . .
that I love you?

--I am not sure who the correct author is, Ive seen different variations.. but I think.. it fits the medium .. that we are in here on the Planet..

[puddin']

geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. and we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. what we need is here.

~wendell berry

[Hominid]

Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes


First, her tippet made of tulle,
easily lifted off her shoulders and laid
on the back of a wooden chair.

And her bonnet,
the bow undone with a light forward pull.

Then the long white dress, a more
complicated matter with mother-of-pearl
buttons down the back,
so tiny and numerous that it takes forever
before my hands can part the fabric,
like a swimmer's dividing water,
and slip inside.

You will want to know
that she was standing
by an open window in an upstairs bedroom,
motionless, a little wide-eyed,
looking out at the orchard below,
the white dress puddled at her feet
on the wide-board, hardwood floor.

The complexity of women's undergarments
in nineteenth-century America
is not to be waved off,
and I proceeded like a polar explorer
through clips, clasps, and moorings,
catches, straps, and whalebone stays,
sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness.

Later, I wrote in a notebook
it was like riding a swan into the night,
but, of course, I cannot tell you everything -
the way she closed her eyes to the orchard,
how her hair tumbled free of its pins,
how there were sudden dashes
whenever we spoke.

What I can tell you is
it was terribly quiet in Amherst
that Sabbath afternoon,
nothing but a carriage passing the house,
a fly buzzing in a windowpane.

So I could plainly hear her inhale
when I undid the very top
hook-and-eye fastener of her corset

and I could hear her sigh when finally it was unloosed,
the way some readers sigh when they realize
that Hope has feathers,
that reason is a plank,
that life is a loaded gun
that looks right at you with a yellow eye.
-- Billy Collins

[Hollylane]

Bless Their Hearts

by Richard Newman

At Steak 'n Shake I learned that if you add
"Bless their hearts" after their names, you can say
whatever you want about them and it's OK.
My son, bless his heart, is an idiot,
she said. He rents storage space for his kids'
toys—they're only one and three years old!
I said, my father, bless his heart, has turned
into a sentimental old fool. He gets
weepy when he hears my daughter's greeting
on our voice mail. Before our Steakburgers came
someone else blessed her office mate's heart,
then, as an afterthought, the jealous hearts
of the entire anthropology department.
We bestowed blessings on many a heart
that day. I even blessed my ex-wife's heart.
Our waiter, bless his heart, would not be getting
much tip, for which, no doubt, he'd bless our hearts.
In a week it would be Thanksgiving,
and we would each sit with our respective
families, counting our blessings and blessing
the hearts of family members as only family
does best. Oh, bless us all, yes, bless us, please
bless us and bless our crummy little hearts.

[Hollylane]

Ode to the Vinyl Record

by Thomas R. Smith

The needle lowers into the groove
and I'm home. It could be any record
I've lived with and loved a long time: Springsteen
or Rodrigo, Ray Charles or Emmylou
Harris: Not only the music, but
the whirlpool shimmering on the turntable
funneling blackly down into the ocean
of the ear—even the background
pops and hisses a worn record
wraps the music in, creaturely
imperfections so hospitable to our own.
Since those first Beatles and Stones LPs
plopped down spindles on record players
we opened like tiny suitcases at sweaty
junior high parties while parents were out,
how many nights I've pulled around
my desires a vinyl record's cloak
of flaws and found it a perfect fit,
the crackling unclarity and turbulence
of the country's lo-fi basement heart
madly spinning, making its big dark sound.

[Hollylane]

I love this because I like to think of myself as a mix of Scarlett and Melanie. Scarlett first, Melanie second, and somehow still, a west coast liberal.






Terra

by Faith Shearin

I grew up watching Gone With the Wind
with my grandmothers, rehearsing

for my life as Scarlett or Melanie. On the bright
steps of my southern childhood I practiced

pinching my cheeks, holding my breath
while someone else tied my corsets.

I could make a dress out of curtains.
I could deliver a baby while, outside,

Atlanta burned. When the wagon took me
home to Terra I would save the plantation

by murder or marriage, my hat tied
beneath my chin in a cheerful bow.

Like Melanie I would forgive anything,
befriend prostitutes, donate my wedding ring

to the soldiers. Someone would kiss me
in a field where cotton no longer bloomed.

I would want whatever I could not have.
I would die trying to have another child.

My husband would never recover from
loving me: my shape on that marble staircase,

too restless for an afternoon nap.

[Semantics]

Past Master


If I mash my brain against paper
And it leaves an imprint
Bloody and blue as a map
And I find someone from the past
Who has painted this disaster
He is my master.


by Stan Rice

[Duchess]

Remember Me When I'm Gone

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned
Only remember me;

You understand it will be late to counsel then or pray
Yet if you should forget me for a while and afterwards remember,
Do not grieve
For if the darkness and corruption
Leave a vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

by Christina Rossetti