Life poems
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Why We Tell Stories
© Lisel Mueller
and because our children believe
they can fly, an instinct retained
from when the bones in our arms
were shaped like zithers and broke
neatly under their feathers
Curriculum Vitae
© Lisel Mueller
2) In the year of my birth, money was shredded into
confetti. A loaf of bread cost a million marks. Of
course I do not remember this.
Adam: A Sacred Drama. Act 4.
© William Cowper
Arion. Lo, from the field of air I too descend,
I who am called Arion,
The mighty ruler of this winged band,
At the command of hell.
Monet Refuses The Operation
© Lisel Mueller
Doctor, you say there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
The Fourth Shepherd
© Joyce Kilmer
O Whiteness, whiter than the fleece
Of new-washed sheep on April sod!
O Breath of Life, O Prince of Peace,
O Lamb of God, O Lamb of God!
Delicatessen
© Joyce Kilmer
Why is that wanton gossip Fame
So dumb about this man's affairs?
Why do we titter at his name
Who come to buy his curious wares?
Martin
© Joyce Kilmer
When I am tired of earnest men,
Intense and keen and sharp and clever,
Pursuing fame with brush or pen
Or counting metal disks forever,
The Cathedral of Rheims
© Joyce Kilmer
(From the French of Emile Verhaeren)He who walks through the meadows of Champagne
At noon in Fall, when leaves like gold appear,
Sees it draw near
Like some great mountain set upon the plain,
Songs of the Spring Days
© George MacDonald
A gentle wind, of western birth
On some far summer sea,
Wakes daisies in the wintry earth,
Wakes hopes in wintry me.
To A Fish
© James Henry Leigh Hunt
O scaly, slippery, wet, swift, staring wights,
What is't ye do? What life lead? eh, dull goggles?
How do ye vary your vile days and nights?
How pass your Sundays? Are ye still but joggles
In ceaseless wash? Still naught but gapes and bites,
And drinks and stares, diversified with boggles?
On C. Dicey, Esq., In Claybrook Church, Leicestershire.
© Hannah More
O Thou, or friend or stranger, who shalt tread
These solemn mansions of the silent dead!
Johnnie Armstrang
© Andrew Lang
Some speak of lords, some speak of lairds,
And sic like men of high degree;
Of a gentleman I sing a sang,
Some time call'd Laird of Gilnockie.
The Visitation
© Joyce Kilmer
(For Louise Imogen Guiney)There is a wall of flesh before the eyes
Of John, who yet perceives and hails his King.
It is Our Lady's painful bliss to bring
Before mankind the Glory of the skies.
The Rosary
© Joyce Kilmer
Not on the lute, nor harp of many strings
Shall all men praise the Master of all song.
Our life is brief, one saith, and art is long;
And skilled must be the laureates of kings.
The Lady and the Tramp by Bruce Guernsey: American Life in Poetry #139 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureat
© Ted Kooser
Man's best friend is, of course, woman's best friend, too. The Illinois poet, Bruce Guernsey, offers us this snapshot of a mutually agreed upon dependency that leads to a domestic communion.
The Big Top
© Joyce Kilmer
The boom and blare of the big brass band is cheering
to my heart
And I like the smell of the trampled grass and elephants and hay.
I take off my hat to the acrobat with his delicate, strong art,
Ode Written in Spring
© John Logan
No longer hoary winter reigns,
No longer binds the streams in chains,
To A Young Poet Who Killed Himself
© Joyce Kilmer
When you had played with life a space
And made it drink and lust and sing,
You flung it back into God's face
And thought you did a noble thing.
Mount Houvenkopf
© Joyce Kilmer
Serene he stands, with mist serenely crowned,
And draws a cloak of trees about his breast.
The thunder roars but cannot break his rest
And from his rugged face the tempests bound.
Alarm Clocks
© Joyce Kilmer
When Dawn strides out to wake a dewy farm
Across green fields and yellow hills of hay
The little twittering birds laugh in his way
And poise triumphant on his shining arm.
