“How to Eat a Poem”
By: Eve Merriam
Don't be polite.
Bite in.
Pick it up with your fingers and lick the juice that may run down your
chin.
It is ready and ripe now, whenever you are.
You do not need a knife or fork or spoon or plate or napkin or
tablecloth.
For there is not core
or stem
or rind
or pit
or seed
to throw away.
My Soul
Ember Ward
Sometimes
When I feel like I’m going to fall apart
I hold my ribs, all the way around,
Both sides.
My ribs hold me together,
Like glue.
They keep my breath close to my heartbeat.
They keep my soul from escaping and
Leaving me, grounded.
I hold brightness and shadows in
The hollow where my ribs meet.
I hold them there in the memories
Of slow, sorrowful music and
Porch steps
I hold my ribs, until I feel solid.
Until my legs are tree trunks and
My fingers are fruit.
Dreams
Langston Hughes
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
One Inch Tall
If you were only one inch tall, you'd ride a worm to school.
The teardrop of a crying ant would be your swimming pool.
A crumb of cake would be a feast
And last you seven days at least,
A flea would be a frightening beast
If you were one inch tall.
If you were only one inch tall, you'd walk beneath the door,
And it would take about a month to get down to the store.
A bit of fluff would be your bed,
You'd swing upon a spider's thread,
And wear a thimble on your head
If you were one inch tall.
You'd surf across the kitchen sink upon a stick of gum.
You couldn't hug your mama, you'd just have to hug her thumb.
You'd run from people's feet in fright,
To move a pen would take all night,
(This poem took fourteen years to write-'Cause I'm just one inch tall).
Shel Silverstein
THE HOUSE WAS QUIET AND THE WORLD WAS CALM
By: Wallace Stevens
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night
Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,
Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.
The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.
And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself
Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.
Annabel Lee
Edgar Allan Poe
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.
But our love it was stronger by far than
the love
Of those who were older than we-Of many far wiser than weAnd 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:--
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.
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.
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.
“Nothing Gold Can Stay”
Robert Frost
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's 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.
“The Toaster”
William Smith
A silver-scaled dragon with jaws flaming red
Sits at my elbow and toasts my bread.
I hand him fat slices, and then, one by one,
He hands them back when he sees they are done.
Richard Cory
E.A. Robinson
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich - yes, richer than a king And admirably schooled in every grace;
In fine we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
I, Too
Langston Hughes
I, too sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
“Jabberwocky”
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
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“What We Want”
Linda Pastan
What we want
is never simple.
We move among the things
we thought we wanted:
a face, a room, an open book
and these things bear our names—
now they want us.
But what we want appears
in dreams, wearing disguises.
We fall past,
holding out our arms
and in the morning
our arms ache.
We don't remember the dream,
but the dream remembers us.
It is there all day
as an animal is there
under the table,
as the stars are there
even in full sun.
“A Blade of Grass”
Brian Patten
You ask for a poem.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You say it is not good enough.
You ask for a poem.
I say this blade of grass will do.
It has dressed itself in frost,
It is more immediate
Than any image of my making.
You say it is not a poem,
It is a blade of grass and grass
Is not quite good enough.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You are indignant.
You say it is too easy to offer grass.
It is absurd.
Anyone can offer a blade of grass.
You ask for a poem.
And so I write you a tragedy about
How a blade of grass
Becomes more and more difficult to offer,
And about how as you grow older
A blade of grass
Becomes more difficult to accept.
Valentine for Ernest Mann
by Naomi Shihab Nye
You can't order a poem like you order a taco.
Walk up to the counter, say, "I'll take two"
and expect it to be handed back to you
on a shiny plate.
Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, "Here's my address,
write me a poem," deserves something in reply.
So I'll tell you a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.
Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn't understand why she was crying.
"I thought they had such beautiful eyes."
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he re-invented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.
Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the odd sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.
And let me know.
Somewhere in the Middle
By: Lisa Ortega
A journey lies ahead
For all teenagers today.
A journey to adulthood,
Our youth to kiss away.
But as we go we find ourselves
At a truly awkward stage.
We’re partial, unripe, sketchy and crude
At this tender age.
We’re old enough to make a choice
Yet still young in many ways.
Too young to pack our backs and go,
Too old to want to stay.
Young enough for fun and games,
Too old for carefree lives.
Young enough for hopes and dreams,
Yet for reality we strive.
Old enough for heartfelt pain,
Too young to find the cure.
Too old for childish ways of past,
Too young to be mature.
Old enough to fall in love
And give our hearts away,
But still too young to understand
Just why we feel this way.
We’re trusted, loyal, proud, and true
Yet scolded, sneered, and scorned.
Between the role of adult and child,
We are somewhere torn.
Like an incomplete work of art,
We’re awkward, unsure, half-baked.
But be patient please
For we’re on our way
To becoming something great.
Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle Received from a Friend Called
Felicity
By: John Tobias
During that summer
When unicorns were still possible;
When the purpose of knees
Was to be skinned;
When shiny horse chestnuts
(Hollowed out
Fitted with straws
Crammed with tobacco
Stolen from butts
In family ashtrays)
Were puffed in green lizard silence
While straddling thick branches
Far above and away
From the softening effects
Of civilization;
During that summer—
Which may never have been at all;
But which has become more real
Than the one that was—
Watermelons ruled.
Thick pink imperial slices
Melting frigidly on sun-parched
tongues
Dribbling from chins;
Leaving the best part,
The black bullet seeds,
To be spit out in rapid fire
Against the wall
Against the wind
Against each other;
And when the ammunition was
spent,
There was always another bite:
It was a summer of limitless bites,
Of hungers quickly felt
And quickly forgotten
With the next careless gorging.
The bites are fewer now.
Each one is savored lingeringly,
Swallowed reluctantly.
But in a jar put up by Felicity,
The summer which maybe never
was
Has been captured and preserved.
And when we unscrew the lid
And slice off a piece
And let it linger on our tongue:
Unicorns become possible again.