Don't Remember If I Posted This Here Already, I Do Know That I Shared It On Facebook Eight Times. I Wonder What That Means.

The Facebook Sonnet

– Sherman Alexie

Welcome to the endless high-school
Reunion. Welcome to past friends
And lovers, however kind or cruel.
Let’s undervalue and unmend

The present. Why can’t we pretend
Every stage of life is the same?
Let’s exhume, resume, and extend
Childhood. Let’s play all the games

That occupy the young. Let fame
And shame intertwine. Let one’s search
For God become public domain.
Let church.com become our church

Let’s sign up, sign in, and confess
Here at the altar of loneliness.

ACCIDENTAL POETRY FROM DONALD TRUMP’S NEW YORK TIMES INTERVIEW NOVEMBER 23, 2016 LARB BLOG

By Gustavo Turner

Yesterday, on November 22, the New York Times interviewed the President-Elect Donald Trump. You can read the full transcript here, or you can read his accidental poetry here.

---

“The Robots”

We’ll make the robots too.
Right now we don’t make the robots.
We don’t make anything.
But we’re going to.

***

“The Wind”

The wind
is a very deceiving thing.

***

“The Windmills”

The windmills
kill birds.

***

“Rust”

Rust is
the good part.

***

“Anything”

I don’t care about anything
having to do with anything
having to do with anything
other than the country.

***

“In a Sense”

I think I’ve been treated very rough.
It’s well out there
that I’ve been treated
extremely unfairly
in a sense,
in a true sense.

****

“The Group”

I don’t want to energize the group.
I’m not looking to energize them.
I don’t want to energize the group,
and I disavow
the group.

***

“The Equation”

We have —
you know,
we come
from different sides
of the equation.

***

“A Pack of Cigarettes and a Couple of Beers”

He said, “I’ve always found,
give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers
and I do better with that
than I do with torture.”

***

“Sheepshead Bay”

I had a Brooklyn office, a little office,
in a little apartment building in Brooklyn
in Sheepshead Bay
where I worked
with my father.

From Nothing's Easy By Ian Anderson

Nothing is easy,
You'll find that the squeeze
Won't turn out so bad
Your fingers may freeze,
Worse things happen at sea,
There's good times to be had
So if you're alone
And you're down to the bone,
Just give us a play
You'll smile in a while
And discover that I'll get you happy my way

Nothing's easy

The Voice

There is a voice inside of you
That whispers all day long,
"I feel this is right for me,
I know that this is wrong."
No teacher, preacher, parent, friend
Or wise man can decide
What's right for you--just listen to
The voice that speaks inside.

― Shel Silverstein

Unsaid

So much of what we live goes on inside—
The diaries of grief, the tongue-tied aches
Of unacknowledged love are no less real
For having passed unsaid. What we conceal
Is always more than what we dare confide.
Think of the letters that we write our dead.

Dana Gioia

After the still small voice
a noise
And after the noise,
a still small voice.
And after it, a noise.
And after it, a still small voice
And after the still small voice,
a noise.
Discard the rest.

- Yehuda Amichai

The Peace of Wild Things

- Wendell Berry

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.

WITH MY GRANDFATHER

by Zelda

Like our father Abraham

who counted stars at night,

who called out to his Creator

from the furnace,

who bound his son

on the altar –

so was my grandfather.

The same perfect faith

in the midst of the flames,

the same dewy gaze

and soft-curling beard.

Outside, it snowed;

outside, they roared:

“There is no justice,

no judge.”

And in the shambles of his room,

cherubs sang

of the Heavenly Jerusalem.

~

YEARS FROM NOW

by Shel Silverstein

"Too far away to see your face
As you flip through these poems a while,
Somewhere from some far off place,
I hear you laughing–and I smile."

The Five Spot, 1964

By Billy Collins

There’s always a lesson to be learned,
whether in a hotel bar
or over tea in a teahouse,
no matter which way it goes,
for you or against,
what you want to hear or what you don’t.

Seeing Roland Kirk, for example,
with two then three saxophones
in his mouth at once
and a kazoo, no less,
hanging from his neck at the ready.

Even in my youth I saw
this not as a lesson in keeping busy
with one thing or another,
but as a joyous impossible lesson
in how to do it all at once,

pleasing and displeasing yourself
with harmony here and discord there.
But what else did I know
as the waitress lit the candle
on my round table in the dark?
What did I know about anything?

עכשיו קרוב - עידן רייכל

יושבים בחוף אל מול המים
מול קצף שנשכח בחול
והנחלים זורמים עדיין
לב שפועם זוכר הכול

מה שהיה בילדותנו
מה שהפכנו להיות
תקוות גדולות נשאה הרוח
חזרה שלכת זיכרונות

וכל דבר אז בי נוגע
כל נפלאות היום
אז בואי ועמדי לרגע
עכשיו קרוב, עכשיו קרוב

כוכב נופל קרוב אלינו
ושוב אליו נושאים תפילות
אור של תקוות עוטף אותנו
זה לתמיד ולא יחלוף

I stand here by the Western Wall,
Baby, look at that wall, standing silent and tall.
And I shove my prayers in the cracks.
Got nothing to lose, no-one to answer back.
All these years I've brought up for review,
Wasn't taught this but I learned something new.
Had to answer a distant call,
At the Western Wall.

And I've got a heart full of fear,
And I offer it up on this altar of tears.
Red dust settles deep in my skin.
Don't know where it starts or where I begin.
It's a crumblin' pile of broken stones;
It ain't much but it might be home.
If I ever loved a place at all,
It's the Western Wall.

I don't know if God was ever a man,
But if She was, I think I understand.
Why he found a place to break his fall,
Near the Western Wall.

- Roseanne Cash

A spider lives inside my head
Who weaves a strange and wondrous web
Of silken threads and silver strings
To catch all sorts of flying things,
Like crumbs of thought and bits of smiles
And specks of dried-up tears,
And dust of dreams that catch and cling
For years and years and years .

- Shel Silverstein (published posthumously)

True Love

By Wislawa Szymborska

True love. Is it normal
is it serious, is it practical?
What does the world get from two people
who exist in a world of their own?

Placed on the same pedestal for no good reason,
drawn randomly from millions but convinced
it had to happen this way - in reward for what?
For nothing.
The light descends from nowhere.
Why on these two and not on others?
Doesn't this outrage justice? Yes it does.
Doesn't it disrupt our painstakingly erected principles,
and cast the moral from the peak? Yes on both accounts.

Look at the happy couple.
Couldn't they at least try to hide it,
fake a little depression for their friends' sake?
Listen to them laughing - its an insult.
The language they use - deceptively clear.
And their little celebrations, rituals,
the elaborate mutual routines -
it's obviously a plot behind the human race's back!

It's hard even to guess how far things might go
if people start to follow their example.
What could religion and poetry count on?
What would be remembered? What renounced?
Who'd want to stay within bounds?

True love. Is it really necessary?
Tact and common sense tell us to pass over it in silence,
like a scandal in Life's highest circles.
Perfectly good children are born without its help.
It couldn't populate the planet in a million years,
it comes along so rarely.

Let the people who never find true love
keep saying that there's no such thing.

Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.

Once By The Pacific

By Robert Frost

The shattered water made a misty din. 
Great waves looked over others coming in, 
And thought of doing something to the shore 
That water never did to land before. 
The clouds were low and hairy in the skies, 
Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes. 
You could not tell, and yet it looked as if 
The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff, 
The cliff in being backed by continent; 
It looked as if a night of dark intent 
Was coming, and not only a night, an age. 
Someone had better be prepared for rage. 
There would be more than ocean-water broken 
Before God's last Put out the light was spoken. 

Don't Allow The Lucid Moment To Dissolve

By Adam Zagajewski

l

Don't allow the lucid moment to dissolve

Let the radiant thought last in stillness

though the page is almost filled and the flame flickers

We haven't risen yet to the level of ourselves

Knowledge grows slowly like a wisdom tooth 

The stature of a man is still notched

high up on a white door

From far off, the joyful voice of a trumpet

and of a song rolled up like a cat

What passes doesn't fall into a void

A stoker is still feeding coal into the fire

Don't allow the lucid moment to dissolve

On a hard dry substance

you have to engrave the truth

n

Translated by Renata Gorczynski

The Uses of Sorrow

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me

a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand


that this, too, was a gift.

 

  (by Mary Oliver, from Thirst, Beacon Press, Boston, 2006)

by e.e. cummings 

in time of daffodils(who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why,remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim
the aim of waking is to dream,
remember so(forgetting seem)

in time of roses(who amaze
our now and here with paradise)
forgetting if,remember yes

in time of all sweet things beyond
whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek(forgetting find)

and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me,remember me 

Forever – is composed of Nows – (690)

BY EMILY DICKINSON

Forever – is composed of Nows –

‘Tis not a different time –

Except for Infiniteness –

And Latitude of Home –

From this – experienced Here –

Remove the Dates – to These –

Let Months dissolve in further Months –

And Years – exhale in Years –

Without Debate – or Pause –

Or Celebrated Days –

No different Our Years would be

From Anno Dominies –

Poem By Pavana

and what do
the flower buds
pushing up from
the broken earth
say about you?


we break
to grow.

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

Good News By Billy Collins (Countering What Chesterton Said About Poets and Cheese)

When the news came in over the phone

that you did not have cancer, as they first thought.

I was in the kitchen trying to follow a recipe,
glancing from cookbook to stove,
shifting my glasses from my nose to my forehead and back,

a recipe, as it turned out, for ratatouille,
a complicated vegetable dish
which you or any other dog would turn up your nose at.

If you had been here, I imagine
you would have been curled up by the door
sleeping with your head resting on your tail.

And after I learned that you were not sick,
everything took on a different look
and appeared to be better than it usually is.

For example (and that’s the first and last time
I will ever use those words in a poem),
I decided I should grate some cheese,

not even knowing if it was right for ratatouille,
and the sight of the cheese grater
with its red handle lying in the drawer

with all the other utensils made me marvel
at how this thing was so perfectly able and ready
to grate cheese just as you with your long smile

and your brown and white coat
are perfectly designed to be the dog you perfectly are.

• 
  

Annabel Lee - Poem by Edgar Allan Poe

Autoplay next poem

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.

I was a child and she 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, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn 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 the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
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 feel 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 the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea. 

Tea

If you are cold, tea will warm you;
If you are too heated, it will cool you;
If you are depressed, it will cheer you;
If you are excited, it will calm you. ~Gladstone


"Tea Weather" by La-Chapeliere-Folle
(la-chapeliere-folle.deviantart.com

)

Apartment House

By Gerald Raftery   

A filing cabinet of human lives

Where people swarm like bees in tunnelled hives,

Each to his own cell in the covered comb,

Identical and cramped - we call it home.