Work poems
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What Indians?
© Ortiz Simon Joseph
The Truth Is: "No kidding?" "No." "Come on! That can't be true!" "No kidding."
A New Story
© Ortiz Simon Joseph
Several years ago,I was a patient at the VA hospitalin Ft, Lyons, Colorado
Mid-America Prayer
© Ortiz Simon Joseph
Standing againwithin and among all things,Standing with each otheras sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers,daughters and sons, grandmothers and grandfathers --the past and present generations of our people,Standing againwith and among all items of life,the land, rivers, the mountains, plants, animals,all life that is around usthat we are included with,Standing within the circle of the horizon,the day sky and the night sky,the sun, moon, the cycle of seasonsand the earth mother which sustains us,Standing againwith all thingsthat have been in the past,that are in the present,and that will be in the futurewe acknowledge ourselvesto be in a relationship that is responsibleand proper, that is loving and compassionate,for the sake of the land and all people;we ask humbly of the creative forces of lifethat we be given a portionwith which to help ourselves so that our struggleand work will also be creativefor the continuance of life,Standing again, within, among all thingswe ask in all sincerity, for hope, courage, peace,strength, vision, unity and continuance
Burning River
© Ortiz Simon Joseph
I will tell my son over and over again,"Do not let the rivers burn
A Satire, in Imitation of the Third of Juvenal
© John Oldham
Though much concern'd to leave my dear old friend,I must however his design commendOf fixing in the country: for were IAs free to choose my residence, as he;The Peak, the Fens, the Hundreds, or Land's End,I would prefer to Fleet Street, or the Strand
Ode
© O'Shaughnessy Arthur
We are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams,Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams; --World-losers and world-forsakers, On whom the pale moon gleams:Yet we are the movers and shakers Of the world for ever, it seems
Living
© O'Reilly John Boyle
To toil all day and lie worn-out at night;To rise for all the years to slave and sleep,And breed new broods to do no other thingIn toiling, bearing, breeding -- life is thisTo myriad men, too base for man or brute
Voice of the Twentieth Century
© Robert Norwood
Voice of our Century, whose heart is broken,Weeping for those who will not come again--Lord Christ! hast thou been crucified in vain?--Challenge the right of every Tyrant's token:The fist of mail; the sceptre; ancient, oakenCoffers of gold for which thy sons are slain;The pride of place, which from the days of CainHath for the empty right of Power spoken!
Be like a trumpet blown from clouds of doomAgainst whatever seeks to bind on earth;Bring from the blood of battle, from the wombOf women weeping for their dead, the birthOf better days with banishment of wrong,Love in all hearts, on every lip--a song
A Song of Workers
© Robert Norwood
Hail to the hodmen,The builders of houses!Hail to the navviesLaying pipes for pure water!Hail to the minersPrisoned in pits,Cleaving the coal,Dauntless of death from the gases!
Darwin
© Robert Norwood
Eternal night and solitude of space;Breath as of vapour crimsoning to flame;Far constellations moving in the sameInvariable order and the paceThat times the sun, or earth's elliptic raceAmong the planets: Life--dumb, blind and lame--Creeping from form to form, until her shameBlends with the beauty of a human face!
Death can not claim what Life so hardly wonOut of her ancient warfare with the Void--O Man! whose day is only now begun,Go forth with her and do what she hath done;Till thy last enemy--Death--be destroyed,And earth outshine the splendour of the sun
The Wanderer
© Newbolt Henry John
To Youth there comes a whisper out of the west: "O loiterer, hasten where there waits for theeA life to build, a love therein to nest, And a man's work, serving the age to be."
My Father’s Hands
© Neilson Shane
Claim a plot of land your prison: boundariesfar as the cricks that keep a neighbour’s farmfrom creeping. The stern command to grow:plough and harrow, till and sow, months of hoe-
MRI
© Neilson Shane
The particulates of matterand one man on a plastic slab,lying so still a black bear,
Boys and Girls Come out to Play
© Mother Goose
Boys and girls come out to play,The moon does shine as bright as day;Come with a hoop, and come with a call,Come with a good will or not at all
Song of the Sewing-Machine
© Morris George Pope
I'm the Iron Needle-Woman! Wrought of sterner stuff than clay;And, unlike the drudges human, Never weary night or day;Never shedding tears of sorrow, Never mourning friends untrue,Never caring for the morrow, Never begging work to do
The Little Walls Before China
© Moritz Albert Frank
A courtier speaks to Ch'in Shih-huang-ti, ca. 210 B.C.
Home Again Home Again
© Moritz Albert Frank
Your parents had reached a long slow time,as animals do, the great center of their lives,when they gleam in their fells as though eternally,unchanging
Business
© Moritz Albert Frank
Stiff, thick: the white hair of the broad-faced father,who leads his shambling son alongcracked sidewalks, by dusty glass half hidinggoods never sold
Sonnet XIX: When I Consider How my Light is Spent
© John Milton
When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bentTo serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide, "Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?" I fondly ask
