Poems
Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words. Robert Frost
About:
I'm not really a poetry person. Here are a few that I like. My favorite is Poem for really serious things.In no particular order:
Poem for really serious things - Tom Brinck, 1996
her laugh
as the sandwich guy makes a joke
the warmth in my cheeks
of something almost jealousy
the light reflected in her eye
the serious way
she eats
her hair falling forward
then her eyes peacefully closed,
brushing it back behind her ear
1.
a day in the woods
she, beside a tree
flowers in the air
the way her shoulder holds a dress
the rabbit that comes to sniff her hand
as she rests in the grass
the curl of her soft fingers
as they gently caress the delicate fur
the pleasure she takes
in stretching her neck
her sleepy way of rolling in the grass.
2.
when our love was still
only secret desire in our hearts
the way I hated myself for days and weeks
when I failed to hold the door for her
waiting at the library at 2pm
knowing that she'd come to read the Times
the 3rd time she laughed at me:
"Are you still here?"
3.
the nights when I met her at a corner
and we walk beside the shops
to find perhaps a meal
a bench on the sidewalk
the way we talk for hours
forgetting to eat
the way I'm lost in her eyes
and she in mine
when she steps away
for a moment
her coat over a chair
makes me feel that all is well
how close we feel
when we share our fries
the sensuality of drinking from her straw
her sheepish grin
when the woman at the table next to us
tells us she can feel
electricity in the air
her fingertips on top of mine
4.
the way she takes me shopping
and pulls my arm to steer me in a store
her keen eye for the elegant
hidden among souvenirs
the covert thrill of choosing lingerie with her
how she prods for my opinion
and I say she should try it on
and show me
her secret pleasure that I should flirt with her
the knowing look in the salesperson's eyes
5.
discovering she'd leave at summer's end
asking her to a play
a silly old romantic comedy
the night coming slowly down
along a wooded path
how we walked so slowly we almost stopped
the outdoor theatre
the nearby vineyard
the stars the breeze
too careful to preserve it all
we sat in silence
the way we sat so close
I smelled perfume
how I'd stare at her with her eyes in the stars
how she'd look back and I'd look away
how she'd stare till I looked at her again
summer's end:
she hates goodbyes
6.
the highway speediing by like a movie
in a rental car
the autumn colors chilly wind
I drive six hours to surprise her
in the library 2pm
she isn't there
the hollow ringing of her phone
leafless trees mimic the bareness of my heart
7,
alone
at her parent's home
she watches out the window
the haphazard path of a dog grazing down the street
somewhere between the glass and the ground
her eyes play out a fantasy
something from across the sky
arms come to hold her tight
the bushweeds gently rocking
as clouds fill the sky
the way lonely moments speak to you
of someone dear
the sad rising and falling of her chest
the way one hand holds the other
wishing one of them were someone else
the rain falling in early twilight
the long century of an afternoon
spent reflecting on someone far away
how she pulls her pillow close
how a tear slowly falls and slowly dries
8.
coming back, the note she finds under the door
the way she jumps when she sees that it's from me
the phone call I get saying
Tom, come back to see me one more time
I promise to be here for you
every inflection of her voice
every nuance in her expression
like dewdrops on my thirsty lips
9.
the unrelenting joy I feel at seeing her again
the rose between my nervous fingers
her smile and the helpless way she climbs into my arms
~
Yours - Leo Marks, 1943
The life that I have Is all that I have And the life that I have Is yours The love that I have Of the life that I have Is yours and yours and yours A sleep I shall have A rest I shall have Yet death will be but a pause For the peace of my years In the long green grass Will be yours and yours And yours
A Valediction: Forbidding Morning - John Donne, 1611
As virtuous men pass mildly away, And whisper to their souls to go, Whilst some of their sad friends do say, "The breath goes now," and some say, "No," So let us melt, and make no noise, No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move; 'Twere profanation of our joys To tell the laity our love. Moving of the earth brings harms and fears, Men reckon what it did and meant; But trepidation of the spheres, Though greater far, is innocent. Dull sublunary lovers' love (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove Those things which elemented it. But we, by a love so much refined That our selves know not what it is, Inter-assured of the mind, Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss. Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion. Like gold to airy thinness beat. If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two: Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if the other do; And though it in the center sit, Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans, and hearkens after it, And grows erect, as that comes home. Such wilt thou be to me, who must, Like the other foot, obliquely run; Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end where I begun.
The Female of the Species - Rudyard Kipling, 1911
When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man,
He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can.
But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,
They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws.
'Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
Man's timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say,
For the Woman that God gave him isn't his to give away;
But when hunter meets with husbands, each confirms the other's tale—
The female of the species is more deadly than the male.
Man, a bear in most relations—worm and savage otherwise,—
Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise.
Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act.
Fear, or foolishness, impels him, ere he lay the wicked low,
To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe.
Mirth obscene diverts his anger—Doubt and Pity oft perplex
Him in dealing with an issue—to the scandal of The Sex!
But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame
Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same;
And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,
The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.
She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast
May not deal in doubt or pity—must not swerve for fact or jest.
These be purely male diversions—not in these her honour dwells—
She the Other Law we live by, is that Law and nothing else.
She can bring no more to living than the powers that make her great
As the Mother of the Infant and the Mistress of the Mate.
And when Babe and Man are lacking and she strides unclaimed to claim
Her right as femme (and baron), her equipment is the same.
She is wedded to convictions—in default of grosser ties;
Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him who denies!—
He will meet no suave discussion, but the instant, white-hot, wild,
Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child.
Unprovoked and awful charges—even so the she-bear fights,
Speech that drips, corrodes, and poisons—even so the cobra bites,
Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw
And the victim writhes in anguish—like the Jesuit with the squaw!
So it comes that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer
With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her
Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands
To some God of Abstract Justice—which no woman understands.
And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him
Must command but may not govern—shall enthral but not enslave him.
And She knows, because She warns him, and Her instincts never fail,
That the Female of Her Species is more deadly than the Male.
Kicked Out - Tom Brinck, 1994
kicked out of college
cuz you couldn't make the grade
cuz after 8 years
some of the other students were starting to complain
kicked out of work
cuz you never made sense
cuz the customers were nervous
with the way you stared
kicked out of home
cuz you wouldn't take a bath
cuz you're killing us all with worry
and you never seem to care
kicked out of church
cuz you couldn't help it
if an occasional "goddamn" somehow just erupted
kicked out of the group home
cuz "you're alright now
you can make it on your own
don't worry -- we believe in you"
kicked out of your apartment
cuz you couldn't pay the rent
and the landlady's screamin', "my god!
what's that smell?!
what have you done to my walls! my furniture!"
you're hangin' out at McDonald's
and you're hungry
so when they put a bag on the counter
you grab it
you turn around to walk out and there's the manager
he asks you to return the bag
then he puts together a little meal for you
he asks you to please eat outside
and he doesn't mind helpin' out
but please don't come back
they're not in the business of givin' out free food
so you come back the next day
and there's a different manager
you ask the cashier for a Big Mac
but when you won't pay
the other manager asks you to leave
and the kids makin' burgers are whisperin'
"that's the same guy as yesterday"
so you hang outside
askin' people for quarters
till eventually the cops come and walk you off the premises
kicked out of the mall
every time you go in
by the burly mall-cops who hold your arms too tight
kicked out of the shelter
cuz they didn't like you when you wouldn't sing the jesus songs
cuz you had one drink too many
and knocked over some furniture
so you go back to McDonald's for some food
but this time the cops come and lock you up
but that's okay
cuz they feed you and you're warm
next day, you're kicked out of jail
cuz no one bothered to press charges
but hopefully a night in jail did you some good
so you curl up in some bushes in the business district
till some cops come by and ask you questions
the lady cop says
"I think you're going to have to move on now"
and you say "what did I do now?
It was that I pissed in the corner of the building, wasn't it?"
and she says
"I don't think it was that in particular
It's just that this is private property and you can't stay here"
but the whole damn town is private property
and they won't let you sleep in the park
and these days you don't have a family to go to
and you never had friends
so you walk down the street muttering
and you find another spot
Snowball the Prozac Bear - Bill Hudgins
On the CBC Newsworld news last night, a short item from the Winnipeg Zoo showed Snowball the Polar Bear, and revealed that she’s on Prozac to help relieve her constant pacing. (How do you spell relief?) As usual, they failed to interview the bear to get her point of view.
Snowball’s Chance
My keepers think I'm all stressed out, because I pace my cage: Perhaps they aren't aware that it's a function of my age. For I was born here in the zoo, and in the zoo I'll die, And though I'm fairly happy here, I miss the open sky. I sniff the air and wonder where the other bears hang out. They're up there in the Arctic on the ice floes, I've no doubt. They wander free, and, unlike me, they take a seal for lunch, While someone gives me herring or some carrots. Thanks a bunch! The Arctic bears have miles to roam, and garbage dumps to raid, And sometimes I think "Ursus maritimus' got it made!" But then I hear that PCBs are in the polar diet, And when they lunch, their fate is sealed. No thanks, don't think I'll try it. I pace a lot, and think too much, so Prozac's in the herring, But maybe that's my keeper's way of showing that they're caring. It's changed my mood, and I feel good, the lows are not so low, But then the highs are not so high, a tradeoff, don't you know. So I will take whatever comes, and just try to relax, My analyst will help cure my anxiety attacks. I would suppose everyone knows I'd rather be on drugs Than stretched out on a salesroom floor with all the other rugs. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted to the Usenet newsgroup alt.animals.bears by Bill Hudgins, bhudgins@lib.uwo.ca.