If – E.E.

Cummings
If freckles were lovely, and day was night,
And measles were nice and a lie warn’t a lie,
Life would be delight,—
But things couldn’t go right
For in such a sad plight
I wouldn’t be I.

If earth was heaven and now was hence,

And past was present, and false was true,
There might be some sense
But I’d be in suspense
For on such a pretense
You wouldn’t be you.

If fear was plucky, and globes were square,

And dirt was cleanly and tears were glee
Things would seem fair,—
Yet they’d all despair,
For if here was there
We wouldn’t be we.

poems 1
anyone lived in a pretty how town – E.E. Cummings
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did.

Women and men(both little and small)

cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few

and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf

she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone’s any was all to her

someones married their everyones

laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon

(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess

(and noone stooped to kiss his face)

poems 2
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep

and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)

summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

poems 3
 Not Waving but Drowning—Stevie Smith
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking

And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always

(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

poems 4
Ode to My Socks
Pablo Neruda, 1904 – 1973

Maru Mori brought me

a pair
of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder’s hands,
two socks as soft
as rabbits.
I slipped my feet
into them
as though into
two
cases
knitted
with threads of
twilight
and goatskin.
Violent socks,
my feet were
two fish made
of wool,
two long sharks
sea-blue, shot
through
by one golden thread,
two immense blackbirds,
two cannons:
my feet
were honored
in this way
by
these
poems 5
heavenly
socks.
They were
so handsome
for the first time
my feet seemed to me
unacceptable
like two decrepit
firemen, firemen
unworthy
of that woven
fire,
of those glowing
socks.

Nevertheless
I resisted
the sharp temptation
to save them somewhere
as schoolboys
keep
fireflies,
as learned men
collect
sacred texts,
I resisted
the mad impulse
to put them
into a golden
cage
and each day give them
birdseed
and pieces of pink melon.
Like explorers

poems 6
in the jungle who hand
over the very rare
green deer
to the spit
and eat it
with remorse,
I stretched out
my feet
and pulled on
the magnificent
socks
and then my shoes.

The moral
of my ode is this:
beauty is twice
beauty
and what is good is doubly
good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool
in winter.

poems 7
 I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

poems 8
Postcards - Poem by Margaret Atwood
I'm thinking about you. What else can I say?
The palm trees on the reverse
are a delusion; so is the pink sand.
What we have are the usual
fractured coke bottles and the smell
of backed-up drains, too sweet,
like a mango on the verge
of rot, which we have also.
The air clear sweat, mosquitoes
& their tracks; birds & elusive.

Time comes in waves here, a sickness, one

day after the other rolling on;
I move up, it's called
awake, then down into the uneasy
nights but never
forward. The roosters crow
for hours before dawn, and a prodded
child howls & howls
on the pocked road to school.
In the hold with the baggage
there are two prisoners,
their heads shaved by bayonets, & ten crates
of queasy chicks. Each spring
there's race of cripples, from the store
to the church. This is the sort of junk
I carry with me; and a clipping
about democracy from the local paper.

Outside the window

they're building the damn hotel,
nail by nail, someone's

poems 9
crumbling dream. A universe that includes you
can't be all bad, but
does it? At this distance
you're a mirage, a glossy image
fixed in the posture
of the last time I saw you.
Turn you over, there's the place
for the address. Wish you were
here. Love comes
in waves like the ocean, a sickness which goes on
& on, a hollow cave
in the head, filling & pounding, a kicked ear.

poems 10
poems 11
poems 12
poems 13
poems 14
poems 15
poems 16
stick boy and match girl in love – Tim Burton

Stick Boy liked Match Girl,

He liked her a lot.
He liked her cute figure,
he thought she was hot.

But could a flame ever burn

for a match and a stick?
It did quite literally;
he burned up quick.

poems 17
- Tim Burton

He proposed in the dunes,

they were wed by the sea,

Their nine-day-long honeymoon

was on the isle of Capri.

For their supper they had one specatular dish-

a simmering stew of mollusks and fish.
And while he savored the broth,
her bride's heart made a wish.

poems 18
That wish came true-she gave birth to a baby.
But was this little one human
Well, maybe.

Ten fingers, ten toes,

he had plumbing and sight.
He could hear, he could feel,
but normal?
Not quite.
This unnatural birth, this canker, this blight,
was the start and the end and the sum of their plight.

She railed at the doctor:

"He cannot be mine.
He smells of the ocean, of seaweed and brine."

"You should count yourself lucky, for only last week,

I treated a girl with three ears and a beak.
That your son is half oyster
you cannot blame me.

poems 19
... have you ever considered, by chance,
a small home by the sea?"

Not knowing what to name him,

they just called him Sam,
or sometimes,
"that thing that looks like a clam"

Everyone wondered, but no one could tell,

When would young Oyster Boy come out of his shell?

When the Thompson quadruplets espied him one day,

they called him a bivalve and ran quickly away.

One spring afternoon,

Sam was left in the rain.
At the southwestern corner of Seaview and Main,
he watched the rain water as it swirled
down the drain.

His mom on the freeway

in the breakdown lane
was pouding the dashboard-
poems 20
she couldn't contain
the ever-rising grief,
frustration,
and pain.

"Really, sweetheart," she said

"I don't mean to make fun,
but something smells fishy
and I think it's our son.
I don't like to say this, but it must be said,
you're blaming our son for your problems in bed."

He tried salves, he tried ointments

that turned everything red.
He tried potions and lotions
and tincture of lead.
He ached and he itched and he twitched and he bled.

The doctor diagnosed,

"I can't quite be sure,
but the cause of the problem may also be the cure.
They say oysters improve your sexual powers.

poems 21
Perhaps eating your son
would help you do it for hours!"

He came on tiptoe,
he came on the sly,
sweat on his forehead,
and on his lips-a lie.
"Son, are you happy? I don't mean to pry,
but do you dream of Heaven?
Have you ever wanted to die?

Sam blinked his eye twice.

but made no reply.
Dad fingered his knife and loosened his tie.

As he picked up his son,

Sam dripped on his coat.
With the shell to his lips,
Sam slipped down his throat.

poems 22
They burried him quickly in the sand by the sea
-sighed a prayer, wept a tear-
and they were back home by three.

A cross of greay driftwood marked Oyster Boy's grave.

Words writ in the sand
promised Jesus would save.

But his memory was lost with one high-tide wave.

poems 23
Introduction to Poetry—Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

poems 24
Bad Day —Kay Ryan

Not every day

is a good day
for the elfin tailor.
Some days
the stolen cloth
reveals what it
was made for:
a handsome weskit
or the jerkin
of an elfin sailor.
Other days
the tailor
sees a jacket
in his mind
and sets about
to find the fabric.
But some days
neither the idea
nor the material
presents itself;
and these are
the hard days
for the tailor elf.

poems 25
“Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting
Out?" —Ron Koertge

Give up sitting dutifully at your desk. Leave

your house or apartment. Go out into the world.

It's all right to carry a notebook but a cheap

one is best, with pages the color of weak tea
and on the front a kitten or a space ship.

Avoid any enclosed space where more than

three people are wearing turtlenecks. Beware
any snow-covered chalet with deer tracks
across the muffled tennis courts.

Not surprisingly, libraries are a good place to write.

And the perfect place in a library is near an aisle
where a child a year or two old is playing as his
mother browses the ranks of the dead.

Often he will pull books from the bottom shelf.

The title, the author's name, the brooding photo
on the flap mean nothing. Red book on black, gray
book on brown, he builds a tower. And the higher
it gets, the wider he grins.

You who asked for advice, listen: When the tower

falls, be like that child. Laugh so loud everybody
in the world frowns and says, "Shhhh."

Then start again.

poems 26
The Bat —Theodore Roethke

By day the bat is cousin to the mouse.

He likes the attic of an aging house.

His fingers make a hat about his head.

His pulse beat is so slow we think him dead.

He loops in crazy figures half the night

Among the trees that face the corner light.

But when he brushes up against a screen,

We are afraid of what our eyes have seen:

For something is amiss or out of place

When mice with wings can wear a human face.

poems 27
Autumn Song - W.H. Auden

Now the leaves are falling fast,

Nurse's flowers will not last;
Nurses to the graves are gone,
And the prams go rolling on.

Whispering neighbours, left and right,

Pluck us from the real delight;
And the active hands must freeze
Lonely on the separate knees.

Dead in hundreds at the back

Follow wooden in our track,
Arms raised stiffly to reprove
In false attitudes of love.

Starving through the leafless wood

Trolls run scolding for their food;
And the nightingale is dumb,
And the angel will not come.

Cold, impossible, ahead

Lifts the mountain's lovely head
Whose white waterfall could bless
Travellers in their last distress.

poems 28
In Memory of W. B. Yeats
W. H. Auden, 1907 - 1973
I

He disappeared in the dead of winter:

The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,
And snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.

Far from his illness

The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;
By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.

But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,

An afternoon of nurses and rumours;
The provinces of his body revolted,
The squares of his mind were empty,
Silence invaded the suburbs,
The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.

Now he is scattered among a hundred cities

And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.

But in the importance and noise of to-morrow

When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the

poems 29
 Bourse,
And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly
accustomed,
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his
freedom,
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.

What instruments we have agree

The day of his death was a dark cold day.

II
You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.

III
Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.

In the nightmare of the dark

All the dogs of Europe bark,
poems 30
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;

Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.

Follow, poet, follow right

To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;

With the farming of a verse

Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;

In the deserts of the heart

Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.

poems 31
Verse 52 from "Song of Myself"
by Walt Whitman
52
The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me . . . . he complains of my gab
and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed . . . . I too am untranslatable,

I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,

It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadowed wilds.
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air . . . . I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,

I effuse my flesh in eddies and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,

If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,

But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,

Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

poems 32
 The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
BY T. S. ELIOT

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
poems 33
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
poems 34
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—

Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

poems 35
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
poems 36
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old ... I grow old ...

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Source: Collected Poems 1909-1962 (1963)

poems 37
The Rubiat—Omar Kahhyam
O Love, you brought forth a jug
Filled with the ache that my heart clog
I won’t drink this wine, this drug!
Drink but for my heart’s sake!

From this wine poured me a cup

Wisely his praises I brought up
Bittersweet, pleasing to sup
Like the praises my heart would make.

From the Wheel of Fortune and fate

Stepped forth a Soul so great
I ran forth to demonstrate
The rewards my heart had at stake.

O Divine Secret, of Thee I ask

Yourself for crowds do not unmask.
Praised and thanked me for my task
For my heart’s sake, thus He spake.

I was pleased that my Beloved’s face

Towards my home its path would trace
And opened up with much grace
The veil covering my heart break.

If Love for blood may thirst

Brave warriors are curst
Mountains spontaneously burst
In such place my heart quake.

O Thou the bringer of cure

Pleasure and pain you endure
Only in you I am secure
Thou can cure my heartache.
poems 38
Every fruit if only tries
My heart’s ache can realize
Melancholic face, bloodshot eyes
Streams form heart’s bloody lake.

King of the World put away tears

The Pride of Tabriz appears
Light of Truth, Shams, now nears
Thy light my heart will wake and take.

poems 39
‘Where the Mind is Without Fear’ -- Rabindranath Tagore
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow
domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection:
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert
sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is lead forward by thee into ever-widening thought and
action–
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

poems 40
‘Let Me Not Forget’ – Rabindranath Tagore

If it is not my portion to meet thee in this life

then let me ever feel that I have missed thy sight
—let me not forget for a moment,
let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams
and in my wakeful hours.
As my days pass in the crowded market of this world
and my hands grow full with the daily profits,
let me ever feel that I have gained nothing
—let me not forget for a moment,
let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams
and in my wakeful hours.
When I sit by the roadside, tired and panting,
when I spread my bed low in the dust,
let me ever feel that the long journey is still before me
—let me not forget a moment,
let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams
and in my wakeful hours.
When my rooms have been decked out and the flutes sound
and the laughter there is loud,
let me ever feel that I have not invited thee to my house
—let me not forget for a moment,
let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams
and in my wakeful hours.

poems 41
I AM THINE AND THOU ART MINE
Rumi
(trans. by R.A. Nicholson)

Eternal Life is gained

by utter abandonment of one’s own life.
When God appears to His ardent lover,
the lover is absorbed in Him, and not so much as a hair of the lover
remains.
True lovers are as shadows,
and when the sun shines in glory the shadows vanish away.

He is a true lover to God to whom God says

“I am thine and thou art Mine.”

A PRAYER
Rumi
(trans. by R.A. Nicholson)
Pray in this wise and allay your difficulties:
“Give us good in the house of our present world,
And give us good in the house of our next world.
Make our path pleasant as a garden.
And be Thou, O Holy One, our goal!”

poems 42
 Jabberwocky
BY LEWIS CARROLL
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;

Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

poems 43
 Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

The Road Not Taken

BY ROBERT FROST
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

poems 44
 Acquainted with the Night
BY ROBERT FROST
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.

I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet

When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;

And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.

I have been one acquainted with the night.

poems 45
Dust of Snow
BY ROBERT FROST
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart

A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

poems 46
 If—
BY RUDYARD KIPLING
(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
poems 47
 If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

7. Sonnet 18 Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

poems 48
2. Sonnet 138- Shakespeare
When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutor’d youth,
Unlearned in the world’s false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppress’d.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love’s best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not to have years told:
Therefore I lie with her and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flatter’d be.

poems 49
 Harlem
BY LANGSTON HUGHES
What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

poems 50
 The Bean Eaters
BY GWENDOLYN BROOKS
They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair.
Dinner is a casual affair.
Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood,
Tin flatware.

Two who are Mostly Good.

Two who have lived their day,
But keep on putting on their clothes
And putting things away.

And remembering ...

Remembering, with twinklings and twinges,
As they lean over the beans in their rented back room that is full of beads and
receipts and dolls and cloths, tobacco crumbs, vases and fringes.

poems 51
We Real Cool
Gwendolyn Brooks, 1917 - 2000
THE POOL PLAYERS.

SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.

We real cool. We

Left school. We

Lurk late. We

Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We

Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We

Die soon.

poems 52
Still I Rise - Poem by Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

poems 53
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame

I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

poems 54
 Caged Bird
BY MAYA ANGELOU
A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks

down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings

with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze

and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams

poems 55
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings

with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

poems 56
We Alone Alice Walker
We alone can devalue gold
by not caring
if it falls or rises
in the marketplace.

Wherever there is gold

there is a chain, you know,
and if your chain
is gold
so much the worse
for you.

Feathers, shells
and sea-shaped stones
are all as rare.

This could be our revolution:

to love what is plentiful
as much as
what's scarce.

poems 57
I Said to Poetry Alice Walker
I said to Poetry: "I'm finished
with you.
"
Having to almost die
before some wierd light
comes creeping through
is no fun.

"No thank you, Creation,

no muse need apply.

Im out for good times--

at the very least,
some painless convention.
"

Poetry laid back

and played dead
until this morning.

I wasn't sad or anything,

only restless.

Poetry said: "You remember

the desert, and how glad you were
that you have an eye
to see it with? You remember
that, if ever so slightly?"

poems 58
I said: "I didn't hear that.

Besides, it's five o'clock in the a.

m.

I'm not getting up

in the dark
to talk to you.
"

Poetry said: "But think about the time

you saw the moon
over that small canyon
that you liked so much better
than the grand one--and how suprised you were
that the moonlight was green
and you still had
one good eye
to see it with

Think of that!"

"I'll join the church!" I said,

huffily, turning my face to the wall.

"I'll learn how to pray again!"

"Let me ask you," said Poetry.

"When you pray, what do you think

poems 59
you'll see?"

Poetry had me.

"There's no paper
in this room," I said.

"And that new pen I bought

makes a funny noise.
"

"Bullshit," said Poetry.

"Bullshit," said I.

poems 60
 Bees Were Better

BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

In college, people were always breaking up.
We broke up in parking lots,
beside fountains.
Two people broke up
across a table from me
at the library.
I could not sit at that table again
though I did not know them.
I studied bees, who were able
to convey messages through dancing
and could find their ways
home to their hives
even if someone put up a blockade of sheets
and boards and wire.
Bees had radar in their wings and brains
that humans could barely understand.
I wrote a paper proclaiming
their brilliance and superiority
and revised it at a small café
featuring wooden hive-shaped honey-dippers
in silver honeypots
at every table.

poems 61
Famous
Naomi Shihab Nye, 1952
The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,

which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds

watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom

is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,

more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it

and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men

who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,

or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.

poems 62
 How to Write the Great American Indian Novel
BY SHERMAN ALEXIE
All of the Indians must have tragic features: tragic noses, eyes, and arms.
Their hands and fingers must be tragic when they reach for tragic food.

The hero must be a half-breed, half white and half Indian, preferably
from a horse culture. He should often weep alone. That is mandatory.

If the hero is an Indian woman, she is beautiful. She must be slender

and in love with a white man. But if she loves an Indian man

then he must be a half-breed, preferably from a horse culture.

If the Indian woman loves a white man, then he has to be so white

that we can see the blue veins running through his skin like rivers.
When the Indian woman steps out of her dress, the white man gasps

at the endless beauty of her brown skin. She should be compared to nature:
brown hills, mountains, fertile valleys, dewy grass, wind, and clear water.

If she is compared to murky water, however, then she must have a secret.
Indians always have secrets, which are carefully and slowly revealed.

Yet Indian secrets can be disclosed suddenly, like a storm.

Indian men, of course, are storms. They should destroy the lives

of any white women who choose to love them. All white women love
Indian men. That is always the case. White women feign disgust

at the savage in blue jeans and T-shirt, but secretly lust after him.
White women dream about half-breed Indian men from horse cultures.

Indian men are horses, smelling wild and gamey. When the Indian man

poems 63
unbuttons his pants, the white woman should think of topsoil.

There must be one murder, one suicide, one attempted rape.

Alcohol should be consumed. Cars must be driven at high speeds.

Indians must see visions. White people can have the same visions
if they are in love with Indians. If a white person loves an Indian

then the white person is Indian by proximity. White people must carry
an Indian deep inside themselves. Those interior Indians are half-breed

and obviously from horse cultures. If the interior Indian is male

then he must be a warrior, especially if he is inside a white man.

If the interior Indian is female, then she must be a healer, especially if she is
inside
a white woman. Sometimes there are complications.

An Indian man can be hidden inside a white woman. An Indian woman

can be hidden inside a white man. In these rare instances,

everybody is a half-breed struggling to learn more about his or her horse

culture.
There must be redemption, of course, and sins must be forgiven.

For this, we need children. A white child and an Indian child, gender
not important, should express deep affection in a childlike way.

In the Great American Indian novel, when it is finally written,

all of the white people will be Indians and all of the Indians will be ghosts.

poems 64
Annabel Lee
by Edgar Allan Poe
(published 1849)
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;--
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
She was a child and I was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love--
I and my Annabel Lee--
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud by night
Chilling my Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

Went envying her and me:--
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of a cloud, chilling
And killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

poems 65
 Of those who were older than we--
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in Heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:--

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea--
In her tomb by the side of the sea.

poems 66
THE MUNICH MANNEQUINS – SYLVIA PLATH

Perfection is terrible, it cannot have children.

Cold as snow breath, it tamps the womb

Where the yew trees blow like hydras,

The tree of life and the tree of life

Unloosing their moons, month after month, to no purpose.

The blood flood is the flood of love,

The absolute sacrifice.

It means: no more idols but me,

Me and you.
So, in their sulfur loveliness, in their smiles

These mannequins lean tonight

In Munich, morgue between Paris and Rome,

Naked and bald in their furs,

Orange lollies on silver sticks,

Intolerable, without minds.

The snow drops its pieces of darkness,

Nobody's about. In the hotels

Hands will be opening doors and setting

Down shoes for a polish of carbon

Into which broad toes will go tomorrow.

poems 67
O the domesticity of these windows,
The baby lace, the green-leaved confectionery,

The thick Germans slumbering in their bottomless Stolz.

And the black phones on hooks

Glittering
Glittering and digesting

Voicelessness. The snow has no voice

poems 68
Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines – Dylan Thomas
Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart
Push in their tides;
And, broken ghosts with glow-worms in their heads,
The things of light
File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.
A candle in the thighs
Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;
Where no seed stirs,
The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars,
Bright as a fig;
Where no wax is, the candle shows its hairs.
Dawn breaks behind the eyes;
From poles of skull and toe the windy blood
Slides like a sea;
Nor fenced, nor staked, the gushers of the sky
Spout to the rod
Divining in a smile the oil of tears.
Night in the sockets rounds,
Like some pitch moon, the limit of the globes;
Day lights the bone;
Where no cold is, the skinning gales unpin
The winter’s robes;
The film of spring is hanging from the lids.
Light breaks on secret lots,
On tips of thought where thoughts smell in the rain;
When logics dies,
The secret of the soil grows through the eye,
And blood jumps in the sun;
Above the waste allotments the dawn halts.
Taken from The Poems (published by Dent), used with the permission of David Higham Associates

poems 69
Do not go gentle into that good night
Dylan Thomas, 1914 - 1953
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

poems 70
He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven by William Butler
Yeats
HAD I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

poems 71
Long-Legged Fly WB Yeats
That civilisation may not sink,
Its great battle lost,
Quiet the dog, tether the pony
To a distant post;
Our master Caesar is in the tent
Where the maps are spread,
His eyes fixed upon nothing,
A hand under his head.
Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.
That the topless towers be burnt
And men recall that face,
Move most gently if move you must
In this lonely place.
She thinks, part woman, three parts a child,
That nobody looks; her feet
Practise a tinker shuffle
Picked up on a street.
Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
Her mind moves upon silence.
That girls at puberty may find
The first Adam in their thought,
Shut the door of the Pope’s chapel,
Keep those children out.
There on that scaffolding reclines
Michael Angelo.
With no more sound than the mice make
His hand moves to and fro.
Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.

poems 72
 The Tyger
BY WILLIAM BLAKE
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,

In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears

And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,

In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

poems 73