Love Rules The Court

Love rules the court,
The camp, the grove,
And men below, and the saints above,
For love is heaven
and heaven is love.

 Sir Walter Scott

 An Inconvenience
by
John Raven

Mama,
papa,
and us
10 kids
lived in 
a single room.
Once, when I
got sick
and like  to die,
I heard a cry
slice through the gloom
"Hotdog!
We gon have
mo room!"

Christmas Dinner
Paul Stookey

And it came to pass on a Christmas evening
While all the doors were shuttered tight
Outside standing, lonely boy-child
Cold and shivering in the night

On the street, every window
Save but one, was gleaming bright
And to this window walked the boy-child
Peeking in saw, candle light

Through other windows he had looked at turkeys
Ducks and geese, cherry pies
But through this window saw a grey-haired lady
Table bare and tears in her eyes

Into his coat reached the boy-child
Knowing well there was little there
He took from his pocket,
his own Christmas dinner
bit of cheese, some bread to share
His outstretched hands
held the food and they trembled
As the door, it opened wide
Said he, Would you share with me Christmas dinner
Gently said she, Come inside

The grey-haired lady brought forth to the table
Glasses two and her last drop of wine
Said she, Here's a toast to everyone's Christmas
and especially, yours and mine

And it came to pass on that Christmas evening
While all the doors were shuttered tight
That in that town, the happiest Christmas
Was shared by candle light.

My Sister's Always on the Phone
Bruce Lansky

My sister's always on the phone.
I never see her study.
She doesn't do her homework,
which is why her grades are cruddy.

My sister's always on the phone,
but I don't think that's cool.
My sister is so popular
she's flunking out of school.

Good-bye, Goldfish

The day my favorite goldfish died,
I’m not ashamed to say, I cried.
I prayed for its departed soul,
then flushed it down the toilet bowl.

Preacher, Don't Send me
Maya Angelou

Preacher, Don't Send me
when I die
to some big ghetto
in the sky
where rats eat cats
of the leopard type
and Sunday brunch
is grits and tripe.

I've known those rats
I've seen them kill
and grits I've had
would make a hill,
or maybe a mountain,
so what I need
from you on Sunday
is a different creed.

Preacher, please don't
promise me
streets of gold
and milk for free.
I stopped all milk
at four years old
and once I'm dead
I won't need gold.

I'd call a place
pure paradise
where families are loyal
and strangers are nice,
where the music is jazz
and the season is fall.
Promise me that
or nothing at all.

Shel  Silverstein

Christmas Dog

Tonight's my first night as a watchdog,
And here it is Christmas Eve..
The children are sleeping' all cozy upstairs,
While I'm guarding' the stockin's and tree..

What's *that* now-footsteps on the rooftop?
Could it be a cat or a mouse?
Who's this down the chimney?
A thief with a beard-
And a big sack for robbin' the house?

Creed
John Masefield
 

I HOLD that when a person dies
His soul returns again to earth;
Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise
Another mother gives him birth.
With sturdier limbs and brighter brain
The old soul takes the road again.

Such is my own belief and trust;
This hand, this hand that holds the pen,
Has many a hundred times been dust
And turned, as dust, to dust again;
These eyes of mine have blinked and shown
In Thebes, in Troy, in Babylon.

All that I rightly think or do,
Or make, or spoil, or bless, or blast,
Is curse or blessing justly due
For sloth or effort in the past.
My life's a statement of the sum
Of vice indulged, or overcome.

I know that in my lives to be
My sorry heart will ache and burn,
And worship, unavailingly,
The woman whom I used to spurn,
And shake to see another have
The love I spurned, the love she gave.

And I shall know, in angry words,
In gibes, and mocks, and many a tear,
A carrion flock of homing-birds,
The gibes and scorns I uttered here.
The brave word that I failed to speak
Will brand me dastard on the cheek.

And as I wander on the roads
I shall be helped and healed and blessed;
Dear words shall cheer and be as goads
To urge to heights before unguessed.
My road shall be the road I made;
All that I gave shall be repaid.

So shall I fight, so shall I tread,
In this long war beneath the stars;
So shall a glory wreathe my head,
So shall I faint and show the scars,
Until this case, this clogging mould,
Be smithied all to kingly gold.

The Unknown Citizen 
W. H. Auden

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a  saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in a hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Installment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content 
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace:  when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

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.

Paul Laurence Dunbar
Negro Love Song

 

Seen my lady home las' night,
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Hel' huh han' an' sque'z it tight,
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Hyeahd huh sigh a little sigh,
Seen a light gleam f'om huh eye,
An' a smile go flittin' by ­­
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Hyeahd de win' blow thoo de pine,
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Mockin'-bird was singin' fine,
Jump back, honey, jump back.
An' my hea't was beatin' so,
When I reached my lady's do',
Dat I could n't ba' to go ­­
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Put my ahm aroun' huh wais',
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Raised huh lips an' took a tase,
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Love me, honey, love me true?
Love me well ez I love you?

Making Up

Little Miss Margaret sits in a pout,
She and her Dolly have just fallen out.

Dolly is gazing with sorest stare,
Fitted dejectedly back in her chair.

Angry at Margaret, tearful and grieved,
Sore at the spanking so lately received.

Pursed are the maiden's lips close as can be,
They are not speaking, Miss Dolly and she.

Five minutes passes in silence and then,
Margaret's ready for playing again.

Dolly unbendingly sits in her place,
Never a change coming over her face.

Up mad goes, Margaret dropping her pout,
Clasping her playmate she whispers in doubt.

Let's don't play and cry, it's too much like true,
Let's make up Dolly I ain't mad is you?

Signs of the Times

Air a-gittin' cool an' coolah,
Frost a-comin' in de night,
Hicka' nuts an' wa'nuts fallin',
Posson keepin' out o' sight.
Tu'key struttin' in de ban'nya'd,
Nary a step so proud ez his'
Keep on struttin', Mistah Tu'key,
Yo' do' know whut time it is.

Cidah press commence a-squeakin'
Eatin' apples so'ed away,
Chillun swa'min' 'roun' lak ho'nets,
Huntin' aigs ermung de hay.
Mistah Tu'key keep on gobblin'
At de geese a-flyin' souf,
Oomph! dat bird do know whut's comin';
Ef he did he'd shet his mouf.

Pumpkin gittin' good an' yallah
Mek me open up my eyes;
Seems lak it's a-lookin' at me
Jes' a-la'in dah sayin' "Pies."
Tu'key gobbler gwine 'roun' blowin',
Keep on talkin', Mistah Tu'key,
You ain't seed no almanac.

Fa'mer walkin' th'll de ba'nya'd
Seein' how things is comin' on,
Sees ef all de fowls in fatt'nin'--
Good times comin' sho's you bo'n.
Hyeahs dat tu'key gobbler braggin',
Den his face break in a smile --
Nebbah min', you sassy rascal,
He's gwine nab you atter while.

Choppin' suet in de kitchen,
Stonin' raisins in de hall,
Beef a-cookin' fu' de mince meat,
Spices groun' -- I smell 'em all.
Look hyeah, Tu'key, stop dat gobblin',
You ain' luned de sense ob feah,
You ol' fool, yo' naik's in dangah,
Do' you you Thanksgibbin's hyeah?

Santa's New Idea
anonymous

Said Santa Claus
One winter’s night,
‘I really think it’s only right
That gifts should have a little say
‘Bout where they’ll be on Christmas Day.’

So, children dear,
When you do see
Your toys in socks or on a tree,
You’ll know in all the world ‘twas you
They wanted to be given to

The Truth the Dead Know

Anne Sexton

For my Mother, born March 1902, died March 1959

 and my Father, born February 1900, died June 1959

Gone, I say and walk from church,

refusing the stiff procession to the grave,

letting the dead ride alone in the hearse.

It is June. I am tired of being brave.

We drive to the Cape. I cultivate

myself where the sun gutters from the sky,

where the sea swings in like an iron gate

and we touch. In another country people die.

My darling, the wind falls in like stones

from the whitehearted water and when we touch

we enter touch entirely. No one's alone.

Men kill for this, or for as much.

And what of the dead? They lie without shoes

in the stone boats. They are more like stone

than the sea would be if it stopped. They refuse

to be blessed, throat, eye and knucklebone.

Portrait of a Neighbor
Edna St. Vincent Millay

Before she has her floor swept
  Or her dishes done,
Any day you'll find her
  A-sunning in the sun!

It's long after midnight
  Her key's in the lock,
And you never see her chimney smoke
  Till past ten o'clock!

She digs in her garden
  With a shovel and a spoon,
She weeds her lazy lettuce
  By the light of the moon.

She walks up the walk
  Like a woman in a dream,

She forgets she borrowed butter
  And pays you back cream!

Her lawn looks like a meadow,
  And if she mows the place
She leaves the clover standing
  And the Queen Anne's lace!

The Secret Heart

Robert Tristin Coffin

Across the years he could recall
His father one way best of all.

In the stillest hour of night
The boy awakened to a light.

Half in dreams, he saw his sire
With his great hands full of fire.

The man had struck a match to see
If his son slept peacefully.

He held his palms each side the spark
His love had kindled in the dark.

His two hands were curved apart
In the semblance of a heart.

He wore, it seemed to his small son,
A bare heart on his hidden one,

A heart that gave out such a glow
No son awake could bear to know.

It showed a look upon a face
Too tender for the day to trace.

One instant, it lit all about,
And then the secret heart went out.

But it shone long enough for one
To know that hands held up the sun.  

Heaven
Jack Myers

Sometimes I feel
mother and father are
watching me, listening
to my thoughts, giggling
at their tadpole squiggling
toward the afterlife,
which is exactly how I began
all this, the work of taking a lifetime
to get over some old embarrassments,

except now I know I'm where
all longing longs to be
and that my parents up there,
like me when I was a kid,
long to grow up into me,
and that their paroxysms
over spilt milk now
are like Moses throwing up
his arms and parting the Red Sea,
and that the sun up there,
which is a shadowy pinprick
of a light so infinite it's been rarified
into spirit, is in its glory
as it makes billions of mistakes a minute.

Page 65 / Riding the subway is an adventure
 Frances Chung

Riding the subway is an adventure 
especially if you cannot read the signs. 
One gets lost. One becomes anxious 
and does not know whether to get off when 
the other Chinese person in your car 
does. (Your crazy logic tells you that 
the both of you must be headed for the 
same stop.) One woman has discovered the 
secret of one-to-one correspondence. 
She keeps the right amount of 
pennies in one pocket and upon arriving in each 
new station along the way she shifts one 
penny to her other pocket. When all the pennies in the 
first pocket have disappeared, 
she knows that she is home.

Rain in the Night
Homero Aridjis

It rains in the night
on the old roofs and the wet streets

on the black hills
and on the temples in the dead cities

In the dark I hear the ancestral music of the rain
its ancient footfall      its dissolving voice

More rapid than the dreams of men
the rain makes roads through the air

makes trails through the dust
longer than the footstep of men.

Tomorrow we will die
die twice over

Once as individuals
a second time as a species

and between the bolts of lightning and the white seeds
scattered through the shadows

there’s time for a complete examination of conscience
time to tell the human story

It rains
It will rain in the night

but on the wet streets and black hills
there will be no one to hear rain fall

Gruel 
Marilyn Chin

Your name is Diana Toy.
And all you may have for breakfast is rice gruel.
You can't spit it back into the cauldron for it would be unfilial.
You can't ask for yam gruel for there is none.
You can't hide it in the corner for it would surely be found,
and then you would be served cold, stale rice gruel.

This is the philosophy of your tong:
you, the child, must learn to understand the universe
through the port-of-entry, your mouth,
to discern bitter from sweet, pungent from bland.
You were told that the infant Buddha once devoured earth
and spewed forth the wisdom of the ages.

Meat or gruel, wine or ghee,
even if it's gruel, even if it's nothing,
that gruel, that nothingness will shine
into the oil of your mother's scrap-iron wok,
into the glare of your father's cleaver,
and dance in your porcelain bowl.

Remember, what they deny you won't hurt you.
What they spare you, you must make shine,
so shine, shine . . .

Immrama

by Paul Muldoon
2003 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

I, too, have trailed my father's spirit
From the mud-walled cabin behind the mountain
Where he was born and bred,
TB and scarletina,

The farm where he was first hired out,
To Wigan, to Crewe junction,
A building-site from which he disappeared
And took passage, almost, for Argentina.

The mountain is coming down with hazel,
The building-site a slum,
While he has gone no further than Brazil.

That's him on the verandah, drinking rum
With a man who might be a Nazi,
His children asleep under their mosquito-nets.

 Old Maids
Sandra Cisneros

My cousins and I,   
we don't marry.  
We're too old  
by Mexican standards.  

And the relatives   
have long suspected  
we can't anymore  
in white.  

My cousins and I,  
we're all old  
maids at thirty.  

Who won't dress children,  
and never saints--  
though we undress them.  

 The aunts,  
they've given up on us.  
No longer nudge--You're next. 

Instead--  
What happened in your childhood?    
What left you all mean teens?    
Who hurt you, honey?  

But we've studied  
marriages too long--  

Aunt Ariadne,  
Tia Vashti,  
Comadre Penelope,  
querida Malintzin,  
Senora Pumpkin Shell--  

lessons that served us well. 

....one blue button
Angela Thomas

Saturday, early morning---
the first footfalls at the table,
clink of keys, silver Bulova and
union badge #437
unwind from the graveyard shift.

He would sleep within an earshot of
mild roars and teenage clangor
in our modest house on 29th Street
while Mother invented new ways to iron

workpants with wire: inlays wedged
with springs against the seams
hung on hangers from our doorways
to dry in their starched blue platoons.

He said I was growing taller than
the summer ivy---wild, serpentine.
While nothing made sense, everything
had priority. This---

growing pains, and that---part hoopla
he determined would pass. We were bound,
by Saturday nights in halcyon corners
and the one blue button.

The threading was easy. I caught a glimpse
of the august smile he was trying to hide,
I thought of Mother
off to Saturday night bingo,

notched among the chips and boards
ready to nail the victory,
her hand rising through a curl of smoke---
missing this.

Invictus

by

William Ernest Henley

1849-1903

Out of the night that covers me,

  Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

  For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

  I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under bludgeonings of chance

  My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

  Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

  Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

  How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

  I am the captain of my soul.

Things

by 

Lisel Mueller

What happened is, we grew lonely
living among the things,
so we gave the clock a face,
the chair a back,
the table four stout legs
which will never suffer fatigue.

We fitted our shoes with tongues
as smooth as our own
and hung tongues inside bells
so we could listen
to their emotional language,

and because we loved graceful profiles
the pitcher received a lip,
the bottle a long, slender neck.

Even what was beyond us
was recast in our image;
we gave the country a heart,
the storm an eye,
the cave a mouth
so we could pass into safety.

Good Times
Lucille Clifton

my daddy has paid the rent
and the insurance man is gone
and the lights is back on
and my uncle brud has hit
for one dollar straight
and they is good times
good times
good times

my mama has made bread
and grampaw has come
and everybody is drunk
and dancing in the kitchen
and singing in the kitchen
of these is good times
good times
good times

oh children think about the
good times

The Men That Don't Fit In

by

Robert Service

There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest. 

If they just went straight they might go far,
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: "Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in

Robert Frost

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

I had for my winter evening walk--
No one at all with whom to talk,
But I had the cottages in a row
Up to their shining eyes in snow.

And I thought I had the folk within:
I had the sound of a violin;
I had a glimpse through curtain laces
Of youthful forms and youthful faces.

I had such company outward bound.
I went till there were no cottages found.
I turned and repented, but coming back
I saw no window but that was black.

Over the snow my creaking feet
Disturbed the slumbering village street
Like profanation, by your leave,
At ten o'clock of a winter eve.

Nothing Gold can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leafs a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

XXVII

by Emily Dickinson

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us--don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To and admiring bog!

Langston Hughes

I Dream a World

I dream a world where man
No other man will scorn,
Where love will bless the earth
And peace its paths adorn
I dream a world where all
Will know sweet freedom's way,
Where greed no longer saps the soul
Nor avarice blights our day.
A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you be,
Will share the bounties of the earth
And every man is free,
Where wretchedness will hang its head
And joy, like a pearl,
Attends the needs of all mankind-
Of such I dream, my world!
 

Teacher

Ideals are like the stars,

Always above our reach.

Humbly I tried to learn,

More humbly did I teach.

On all honest virtues

I sought to keep firm hold.

I wanted to be a good man

Though I pinched my soul.

But now I lie beneath cool loam

Forgetting every dream;

And in this narrow bed of earth

No lights gleam.

In this narrow bed of earth

Star-dust never scatters,

And I tremble lest the darkness teach

Me that nothing matters.

 The Groundhog
Richard Eberhart

In June, amid the golden fields,
I saw a groundhog lying dead.
Dead lay he; my senses shook,
And mind outshot our naked frailty.
There lowly in the vigorous summer
His form began its senseless change,
And made my senses waver dim
Seeing nature ferocious in him.
Inspecting close his maggots' might
And seething cauldron of his being,
Half with loathing, half with a strange love,
I poked him with an angry stick.
The fever rose, became a flame
And Vigor circumscribed the skies,
Immense energy in the sun,
And through my frame a sunless trembling.
My stick had done nor good nor harm.
Then stood I silent in the day
Watching the object, as before;
And kept my reverence for knowledge
Trying for control, to be still,
To quell the passion of the blood;
Until I had bent down on my knees
Praying for joy in the sight of decay.
And so I left: and I returned
In Autumn strict of eye, to see
The sap gone out of the groundhog,
But the bony sodden hulk remained.
But the year had lost its meaning,
And in intellectual chains
I lost both love and loathing,
Mured up in the wall of wisdom.
Another summer took the fields again
Massive and burning, full of life,
But when I chanced upon the spot
There was only a little hair left,
And bones bleaching in the sunlight
Beautiful as architecture;
I watched them like a geometer,
And cut a walking stick from a birch.
It has been three years, now.
There is no sign of the groundhog.
I stood there in the whirling summer,
My hand capped a withered heart,
And thought of China and Greece,
Of Alexander in his tent;
Of Montaigne in his tower,
Of Saint Theresa in her wild lament.