Monday, February 10, 2014

"Ode on Solitude," by Alexander Pope


Ode on Solitude
- Alexander Pope

1                     Happy the man whose wish and care                     
2                              A few paternal acres bound,
3              Content to breathe his native air,
4                                              In his own ground.

5              Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
6                              Whose flocks supply him with attire,
7              Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
8                                              In winter fire.

9              Blest, who can unconcern’dly find
10                           Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
11           In health of body, peace of mind,
12                                           Quiet by day,

13           Sound sleep by night; study and ease,
14                          Together mixt; sweet recreation;
15           And Innocence, which most does please
16                                           With meditation.

17           Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,
18                           Thus unlamented let me die,
19           Steal from the world, and not a stone
20                                           Tell where I lie.

"On the Grasshopper and Cricket," by John Keats


On the Grasshopper and Cricket
- John Keats

 
1                     The poetry of earth is never dead:                          
2                              When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
3                              And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
4              From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
5              That is the Grasshopper’s – he takes the lead
6                              In summer luxury, - he has never done
7                              With his delights; for when tired out with fun
8              He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
9              The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
10                           On a lone winter evening, when the frost
11                                           Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
12           The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,
13                           And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
14                                           The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.

"Speech to the Young," by Gwendolyn Brooks


Speech to the Young
Speech to the Progress-Toward
(Among them Nora and Henry III)

- Gwendolyn Brooks

1                     Say to them,                                                                     
2                     say to the down-keepers,
3                     the sun-slappers,
4                     the self-soilers,
5                     the harmony-hushers,                                                 
6                     “Even if you are not ready for day
7                     it cannot always be night.”
8                     You will be right.
9                     For that is the hard home-run.

10                 Live not for battles won.
11                 Live not for the-end-of-the-song.
12                 Live in the along.

"We Alone," by Alice Walker


We Alone
-Alice Walker

1              We alone can devalue gold
2              by not caring
3              if it falls or rises
4              in the marketplace.
5              Wherever there is gold
6              there is a chain, you know,
7              and if your chain
8              is gold
9              so much the worse
10           for you.

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

14           This could be our revolution:
15           To love what is plentiful
16           as much as
17           what is scarce.

"It's all I have to bring today - " by Emily Dickinson


It’s all I have to bring today -
-Emily Dickinson


1              It’s all I have to bring today -
2              This, and my heart beside -
3              This, and my heart, and all the fields -
4              And all the meadows wide -
5              Be sure you count – should I forget
6              Some one the sum could tell -
7              This, and my heart, and all the Bees
8              Which in the Clover dwell.

"the lesson of the moth," by Don Marquis


the lesson of the moth

- Don Marquis

 

1                     i was talking to a moth                                                         50           but at the same time i wish               

2                     the other evening                                                                51           there was something i wanted

3                     he was trying to break into                                                52           as badly as he wanted to fry himself

4                     an electric light bulb                                                          

5                     and fry himself on the wires                                                                                              -archy

 

6                     why do you fellows

7                     pull this stunt i asked him

8                     because it’s the conventional

9                     thing for moths or why

10                 if that had been an uncovered

11                 candle instead of an electric

12                 light bulb you would

13                 now be a small unsightly cinder

14                 have you no sense

 

15                 plenty of it he answered

16                 but at times we get tired

17                 of using it

18                 we get bored with the routine

19                 and crave beauty

20                 and excitement

21                 fire is beautiful

22                 and we know that if we get

23                 too close it will kill us

24                 but what does that matter

25                 it is better to be happy

26                 for a moment

27                 and be burned up with beauty

28                 than to live a long time

29                 and be bored all the while

30                 so we wad all our life up

31                 into one little roll

32                 and then we shoot the roll

33                 that is what life is for

34                 it is better to be a part of beauty

35                 for one instant and then to cease to

36                 exist than to exist forever

37                 and never be part of beauty

38                 our attitude toward life

39                 is to come easy go easy

40                 we are like human beings

41                 used to be before they became

42                 too civilized to enjoy themselves

 

43                 out of his philosophy

44                 he went and immolated himself

45                 on a patent cigar lighter

46                 i do not agree with him

47                 myself i would rather have

48                 half the happiness and twice

49                 the longevity

"Identity," by Julio Noboa


Identity
- Julio Noboa

1                     Let them be flowers,
2                     always watered, fed, guarded, admired,
3                     but harnessed to a pot of dirt.

4                     I’d rather be a tall, ugly weed,
5                     clinging on cliffs, like an eagle
6                     wind-wavering above high, jagged rocks.

7                     To have broken through the surface of stone
8                     to live, to feel exposed to the madness
9                     of the vast, eternal sky.
10                 To be swayed by the breezes of an ancient sea,
11                 carrying my soul, my seed beyond the mountains of time
12                 or into the abyss of the bizarre.

13                 I’d rather be unseen, and if,

14                 then shunned by everyone
15                 than to be a pleasant-smelling flower,
16                 growing in clusters in the fertile valley
17                 where they’re praised, handled, and plucked
18                 by greedy, human hands.

19                 I’d rather smell of musty, green stench
20                 than of sweet, fragrant lilac.
21                 If I could stand alone, strong and free,
22                 I’d rather be a tall, ugly weed.

"Introduction to Poetry," by Billy Collins


Introduction to Poetry
- Billy Collins

1                     I ask them to take a poem
2                     and hold it up to the light
3                     like a color slide
 
4                     or press an ear against its hive.

5                     I say drop a mouse into a poem
6                     and watch him probe his way out,

7                     or walk inside the poem’s room
8                     and feel the walls for a light switch.

9                     I want them to waterski
10                 across the surface of a poem
11                 waving at the author’s name on the shore.

12                 But all they want to do
13                 is tie the poem to a chair with a rope
14                 and torture a confession out of it.

15                 They begin beating it with a hose
16                 to find out what it really means.

"Simile: Willow and Ginkgo," by Eve Merriam


Simile:  Willow and Ginkgo
- Eve Merriam

1                     The willow is like an etching,
2                     Fine-lined against the sky.
3                     The ginkgo is like a crude sketch,
4                     Hardly worth to be signed.

5                     The willow’s music is like a soprano,
6                     Delicate and thin.
7                     The ginkgo’s tune is like a chorus
8                     With everyone joining in.

9                     The willow is sleek as a velvet-nosed calf;
10                 The willow is leathery as an old bull.
11                 The willow’s branches are like silken thread;
12                 The ginkgo’s like stubby rough wool.

13                 The willow is like a nymph with streaming hair;
14                 Wherever it grows, there is green and gold and fair.
15                 The willow dips to the water,
16                 Protected and precious, like the king’s favorite daughter.

17                 The ginkgo forces its way through gray concrete;
18                 Like a city child, it grows up in the street.
19                 Thrust against the metal sky,
20                 Somehow it survives and even thrives.

21                 My eyes feast upon the willow,
22                 But my heart goes to the gingko.