Poem of the Day

[Tillamook]

Sonnet 109: O! never say that I was false of heart by William Shakespeare

 

O never say that I was false of heart,

Though absence seemed my flame to qualify.

As easy might I from myself depart,

As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie.

That is my home of love; if I have ranged

Like him that travels I return again,

Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,

So that myself bring water for my stain.

Never believe, though in my nature reigned

All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,

That it could so preposterously be stained

To leave for nothing all thy sum of good—

For nothing this wide universe I call,

Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all.

[Tillamook]

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"What Shall We Do Now" by Pink Floyd

 

What shall we use to fill the empty spaces

Where waves of hunger roar?

Shall we set out across the sea of faces

In search of more and more applause?

Shall we buy a new guitar?

Shall we drive a more powerful car?

Shall we work straight through the night?

Shall we get into fights?

Leave the lights on?

Drop bombs?

Do tours of the east?

contract diseases?

Bury bones?

Break up homes?

Send flowers by phone?

Take to drink?

Go to shrinks?

Give up meat?

Rarely sleep?

Keep people as pets?

Train dogs?

Race rats?

Fill the attic with cash?

Bury treasure?

Store up leisure?

But never relax at all

With our backs to the wall.

[Tillamook]

In the desert by Stephen Crane

 

In the desert

I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

Who, squatting upon the ground,

Held his heart in his hands,

And ate of it.

I said: "Is it good, friend?"

"It is bitter-bitter," he answered;

"But I like it

Because it is bitter,

And because it is my heart."

[Tillamook]

If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda

 

I want you to know

one thing.

 

You know how this is:

if I look

at the crystal moon, at the red branch

of the slow autumn at my window,

if I touch

near the fire

the impalpable ash

or the wrinkled body of the log,

everything carries me to you,

as if everything that exists:

aromas, light, metals,

were little boats that sail

toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

 

Well, now,

if little by little you stop loving me

I shall stop loving you little by little.

 

If suddenly

you forget me

do not look for me,

for I shall already have forgotten you.

 

If you think it long and mad,

the wind of banners

that passes through my life,

and you decide

to leave me at the shore

of the heart where I have roots,

remember

that on that day,

at that hour,

I shall lift my arms

and my roots will set off

to seek another land.

 

But

if each day,

each hour,

you feel that you are destined for me

with implacable sweetness,

if each day a flower

climbs up to your lips to seek me,

ah my love, ah my own,

in me all that fire is repeated,

in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,

my love feeds on your love, beloved,

and as long as you live it will be in your arms

without leaving mine.

[Tillamook]

Odes, Book 3, Verse 29: Happy the Man by Horace

 

Happy the man, and happy he alone,

He who can call today his own:

He who, secure within, can say,

Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.

Be fair or foul or rain or shine

The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.

Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,

But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

[Tillamook]

I Knew A Woman by Theodore Roethke

 

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,

When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;

Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one;

The shapes a bright container can contain!

Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,

Or English poets who grew up on Greek

(I'd have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek).

 

How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,

She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand;

She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin;

I nibbled meekly, from her proffered hand;

She was the sickle; I poor I, the rake,

Coming behind her for her pretty sake

(But what prodigious mowing we did make).

 

Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:

Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;

She played it quick, she played it light and loose;

My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;

Her several parts could keep a pure repose,

Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose

(She moved in circles, those circles moved).

 

Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:

I'm martyr to a motion not my own;

What's freedom for? To know eternity.

I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.

But who would count eternity in days?

These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:

(I measure time by how a body sways).

[Tillamook]

Irony by Thomas Lux

 

A hand grenade – thunk – lands in a bunker.

Two brave men dive

to smother it with their helmets and bellies,

their heads collide,

both are knocked out

and seconds later die

 

in the unmuffled blast: hard irony, a device

we turn to

when each door, hatch, gate, path

we turn to

opens to

the blank. And it can make us laugh,

 

which is good,

human. And it says one thing

when it means another,

which we love: it's safe there, one foot

on each side

of a crevasse, one can be both numb

 

and acute, brave

and fearful, at ease

in a mink-lined noose: we love

this tool

and the comfort, the justice, it provides,

it provides.

[Tillamook]

Mutability by Percy Bysshe Shelley

 

The flower that smiles today

Tomorrow dies;

All that we wish to stay,

Tempts and then flies.

What is this world's delight?

Lightning that mocks the night,

Brief even as bright.

 

Virtue, how frail it is!

Friendship how rare!

Love, how it sells poor bliss

For proud despair!

But we, though soon they fall,

Survive their joy and all

Which ours we call.

 

Whilst skies are blue and bright,

Whilst flowers are gay,

Whilst eyes that change ere night

Make glad the day,

Whilst yet the calm hours creep,

Dream thou - and from thy sleep

Then wake to weep.

[Tillamook]

Talk About Walking by Philip Booth

 

Where am I going? I'm going

out, out for a walk. I don't

know where except outside.

Outside argument, out beyond

wallpapered walls, outside

wherever it is where nobody

ever imagines. Beyond where

computers circumvent emotion,

where somebody shorted specs

for rivets for airframes on

today's flights. I'm taking off

on my own two feet. I'm going

to clear my head, to watch

mares'-tails instead of TV,

to listen to trees and silence,

to see if I can still breathe.

I'm going to be alone with

myself, to feel how it feels

to embrace what my feet

tell my head, what wind says

in my good ear. I mean to let

myself be embraced, to let go

feeling so centripetally old.

Do I know where I'm going?

I don't. How long or far

I have no idea. No map. I

said I was going to take

a walk. When I'll be back

I'm not going to say.

[Tillamook]

Run before Dawn by William Stafford

 

Most mornings I get away, slip out

the door before light, set forth on the dim gray

road, letting my feet find a cadence

that softly carries me on. Nobody

is up—all alone my journey begins.

 

Some days it's escape: the city is burning

behind me, cars have stalled in their tracks,

and everybody is fleeing like me but some other direction.

My stride is for life, a far place.

 

Other days it is hunting: maybe some game will cross

my path and my stride will follow for hours, matching

all turns. My breathing has caught the right beat

for endurance; familiar trancelike scenes glide by.

 

And sometimes it's a dream of motion, streetlights coming near,

passing, shadows that lean before me, lengthened

then fading, and a sound from a tree: a soul, or an owl.

 

These journeys are quiet. They mark my days with adventure

too precious for anyone else to share, little gems

of darkness, the world going by, and my breath, and the road.

[Tillamook]

She Walks in Beauty by George Gordon Byron

 

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies

 

One shade the more, one ray the less,

had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven trees,

Or softly lightens o'er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express

How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

 

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, that tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

[Tillamook]

The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes

 

I've known rivers:

I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the

flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

 

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

I heard the singing of the Mississippi

when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy

bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

 

I've known rivers:

Ancient, dusky rivers.

 

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

[Tillamook]

ANTONIO. by Miguel de Cervantes

 

Yes, lovely nymph, thou art my prize;

I boast the conquest of thy heart,

Though nor thy tongue, nor speaking eyes,

Have yet revealed the latent smart.

 

Thy wit and sense assure my fate,

In them my love's success I see;

Nor can he be unfortunate,

Who dares avow his flame for thee.

 

Yet sometimes hast thou frown'd, alas!

And given my hopes a cruel shock;

Then did thy soul seem form'd of brass,

Thy snowy bosom of the rock.

 

But in the midst of thy disdain,

Thy sharp reproaches, cold delays,

Hope from behind, to ease my pain,

The border of her robe displays.

 

Ah! lovely maid! in equal scale

Weigh well thy shepherd's truth and love,

Which ne'er, but with his breath, can fail,

Which neither frowns nor smiles can move.

 

If love, as shepherds wont to say,

Be gentleness and courtesy,

So courteous is Olalia,

My passion will rewarded be.

 

And if obsequious duty paid

The grateful heart can never move,

Mine sure, my fair, may well persuade

A due return, and claim thy love.

 

For, to seem pleasing in thy sight,

I dress myself with studious care,

And, in my best apparel dight,

My Sunday clothes on Monday wear.

 

And shepherds say, I'm not to blame;

For cleanly dress and spruce attire

Preserve alive love's wanton flame,

And gently fan the dying fire.

 

To please my fair, in mazy ring

I join the dance, and sportive play,

And oft beneath thy window sing,

When first the cock proclaims the day.

 

With rapture on each charm I dwell,

And daily spread thy beauty's fame;

And still my tongue thy praise shall tell,

Though envy swell, or malice blame.

 

Teresa of the Berrocal,

When once I prais'd you, said in spite;

Your mistress you an angel call,

But a mere ape is your delight:

 

Thanks to the bugle's artful glare,

And all the graces counterfeit:

Thanks to the false and curled hair,

Which wary love himself might cheat.

 

I swore 'twas false; and said she lied;

At that her anger fiercely rose:

I box'd the clown that took her side,

And how I box'd my fairest knows.

 

I court thee not, Olalia,

To gratify a loose desire;

My love is chaste without alloy

Of wanton wish, or lustful fire.

 

The church hath silken cords that tie

Consenting hearts in mutual bands:

If thou, my fair, its yoke will try,

Thy swain its ready captive stands.

 

If not, by all the saints I swear,

On these bleak mountains still to dwell,

Nor ever quit my toilsome care,

But for the cloister and the cell.

[Safferz]

Cara.;394368 wrote:

Do not go gentle into that good night

 

Dylan Thomas

 

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

 

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

 

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

One of my favourites, love Dylan Thomas.

[Tillamook]

Simple English by Ray Clarke Rose

 

Ofttimes when I put on my gloves,

I wonder if I'm sane.

For when I put the right one on, The right seems to remain

To be put on—that is, 'tis left;

Yet if the left I don,

The other one is left, and then

I have the right one on.

But still I have the left on right;

The right one, though, is left

To go right on the left right hand

All right, if I am deft.