"If"

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;
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!

By Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936).

STILL I RISE
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod 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
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.


Written by Maya Angelou
[Edited 7/6/09 17:00pm]

Dayclear said:

Maya is my mentor

Child of the grass

Ezra Pound (1885-1972)

Child of the grass
The years pass Above us
Shadows of air All these shall Love us
Winds for our fellows
The browns and the yellows
Of autumn our colors
Now at our life's morn. Be we well sworn
Ne'er to grow older
Our spirits be bolder At meeting
Than e'er before All the old lore
Of the forests & woodways
Shall aid us: Keep we the bond & seal
Ne'er shall we feel
Aught of sorrow

Let light flow about thee
Asa cloak of air

I Love poetry. This is a very nice thread

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

A free bird leaps on the back of the wind
and floats downstream till the current ends
and dips his wing in the orange suns 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 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.


Written by Maya Angelou

O Me! O Life!

O ME! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more
faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever
renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.
That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass, 1900

Dayclear said:

I love it, too

Who is Maya Angelou? you? very interesting poems...

The Small Hours

No more my little song comes back;
And now of nights I lay
My head on down, to watch the black
And wait the unfailing gray.

Oh, sad are winter nights, and slow;
And sad's a song that's dumb;
And sad it is to lie and know
Another dawn will come.

-Dorothy Parker

A Very Short Song

Once, when I was young and true,
Someone left me sad-
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.

Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.

-Dorothy Parker

The One Thing I Won't Eat

I don't care how nice you ask me
there is one thing I won't eat.
I don't care how much you add to it
to try to make it sweet.

Not a giant pot of honey.
Not a dozen jars of jelly.
Not a sixteen-pack of soda pop
will get one in my belly.

Use a tank of maple syrup
or a truckload full of fudge.
Bring a hundred cans of frosting
but you will not make me budge.

Try a thousand pounds of chocolate
or a million tons of sugar.
I don't care how much you sweeten it,
I will not eat a booger.
--Kenn Nesbitt


[Edited 7/6/09 17:40pm]

Among the Multitude

AMONG the men and women, the multitude,
I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs,
Acknowledging none else—not parent, wife, husband, brother, child, any nearer than I am;
Some are baffled—But that one is not—that one knows me.

Ah, lover and perfect equal!
I meant that you should discover me so, by my faint indirections;
And I, when I meet you, mean to discover you by the like in you.

Walt Whitman
Leaves of Grass. 1900.


Ok, Dayclear, I Know who is Maya Angelou!!

computer classes are stupid
and so boring. i yawn every 2 minutes
and stare at the wall and feel a little bad
for the girl instructor. i try to stifle my yawn if she looks at me.
she has a bulky sweater in this hot dry room
and i bet she's too hot. she seems really nice and timid.
but that guy, that fucking guy
that buzzcut who works in shipping and receiving who starts

every
single
sentence

with "so".

i know you think it makes you sound smarter, but it doesn't.

you should take "talk on target". i took it a few months ago.
they'll tell you to get rid of "so" and your stupid power point. and also how president obama needs to work on his ummmmms.

anyway, this class is dumb, i don't even use this software.

-me

Prothalamium,
by Aaron Kramer

Come, all of you who are not satisfied
as rulers in a lone wallpapered room
full of mute birds and flowers that falsely bloom,
and closets choked with dreams that long ago died!

Come, let us sweep the old streets--like a bride;
sweep out the dead leaves with a relentless broom;
prepare for Spring, as if he were our groom
for whose light footstep eagerly we bide.

We'll sweep out the shadows, where the rats long fed;
sweep out our shame--and in its place we'll make
a bower for love, a splendid marriage-bed
fragrant with flowers aquiver for the Spring.
And when he comes, our murdered dreams shall wake;
and when he comes, all the mute birds shall sing,
and when he comes, all the mute birds shall sing.

PART ONE: LIFE

XIX

PAIN has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.

It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.

XXII

I HAD no time to hate, because
The grave would hinder me,
And life was not so ample I
Could finish enmity.

Nor had I time to love; but since
Some industry must be,
The little toil of love, I thought,
Was large enough for me.


Emily Dickinson (1830–86). Complete Poems

starkitty said:

I like it.

starkitty said: