How dare you!
How dare you pull this mantle from your sloven
sleeve and think it worthy enough to cover my boy.
How dare you judge when you also wallow in this mud.
Society has turned its power over to you,
relinquishing its rule, turned it over
to the man in the mask, whose face never changes,
always distorts, who does not live where I live,
but commands the corners, who does not have to await
the nightmares, the street chants, the bullets,
the early-morning calls, but looks over at us
and demeans, calls us animals, not worthy
of his presence, and I have to say: How dare you!
My son deserves a future and a job. He deserves
contemplation. I can't turn away as you.
Yet you govern us? Hear my son's talk.
Hear his plea within his pronouncement,
his cry between the breach of his hard words.
My son speaks in two voices, one of a boy,
the other of a man. One is breaking through, the other just hangs. Listen, you who can turn away,
who can make such a

Old but gold.

This poem is not in the book shown. This was transcribed from an instagram post made on June 18, 2024.

Take your pick of politicians, out of touch so deeply.
Who crave your vote to steer our boat jump into bed to sleep li-
asing with corrupted frauds who desecrate their post.
The parliamentary parasites who wank to Thatcher's ghost.
What I really think is not politically correct.
I'm sick of seeing sycophants whose job is to perfect
The art of causing chasms and dissolving public unity.
A poison, puerile, pestilence polluting our community.
Where's the money skimmed from taxes getting siphoned for expenses?
Where's the justice for your mates who commit criminal offenses?
Where's the empathy for humans that don't look or act like you?
What are all the citizens who are in poverty to do?
Where are all the refugees who simply need our help to go?
Just stick em on a barge or plane; maintain the status quo.
Use them as an excuse for why we can't afford to

If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself—
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale

by Ada Limón

All these great barns out here in the outskirts,
black creosote boards knee-deep in the bluegrass.
They look so beautifully abandoned, even in use.
You say they look like arks after the sea’s
dried up, I say they look like pirate ships,
and I think of that walk in the valley where
J said, You don’t believe in God? And I said,
No. I believe in this connection we all have
to nature, to each other, to the universe.
And she said, Yeah, God. And how we stood there,
low beasts among the white oaks, Spanish moss,
and spider webs, obsidian shards stuck in our pockets,
woodpecker flurry, and I refused to call it so.
So instead, we looked up at the unruly sky,
its clouds in simple animal shapes we could name
though we knew they were really just clouds—
disorderly, and marvelous, and ours.

tried to post this in the lemmy.world community since it's more active, but it loaded for like 10 minutes before i gave up. i'm curious if it'll work here.

image version

The Figure

You sit at a window and listen to your father
crossing the dark grasses of the fields

toward you, a moon soaking through his shoes as he shuffles the wind
aside, the night in his hands like an empty bridle.

How long have we been this way, you ask him.
It must be ages, the wind answers. It must be the music of the wind

turning your fingers to glass, turning the furniture of childhood
to the colors of horses, turning them away.

Your father is still crossing the acres, a light on his tongue
like a small coin from an empire that has always been ruined.

Now the dark flocks are drifting through his shoulders
with an odor of lavender, an odor of gold. Now he has turned

as though to go, but only knelt down with the heavy oars
of October on his forearms, to begin the horrible rowing.

You sit in a chair in the room. The wind lies open
on your lap like the score of a life you did not measure.

You rise. You turn b

Much more solemn than the others I’ve posted

Grass.

BY CARL SANDBURG.

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo
Shovel them under and let me work—
I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?

 undefined

                                              I am the grass.   
                                          Let me work.  
  

Another one from the very old book of poetry that was my grandma's.

**The Duel

Eugene Field 1850 – 1895**

The gingham dog and the calico cat
Side by side on the table sat;
'T was half-past twelve, and (what do you think!)
Nor one nor t' other had slept a wink!
The old Dutch clock and the Chinese plate
Appeared to know as sure as fate
There was going to be a terrible spat.
* (I wasn't there; I simply state
What was told to me by the Chinese plate!) *

The gingham dog went "Bow-wow-wow!"
And the calico cat replied "Mee-ow!"
The air was littered, an hour or so,
With bits of gingham and calico,
While the old Dutch clock in the chimney-place
Up with its hands before its face,
For it always dreaded a family row!
*(Now mind: I'm only telling you
What the old Dutch clock declares is true!) *

The Chinese plate looked very blue,
And wailed, "Oh, dear! what shall we do!"
But the ging

In truth, I didn't encounter this until I saw Dead Poet's Society when it came out out on VHS. But that movie is part of how I came to appreciate poetry rather than just putting in the work in school. There really is something about poetry being performed aloud that makes it more moving than just a classmate reading from a book in a stilted voice.

Anyway, this isn't a recipe blog, so I won't go into that any further. And the poem stands for itself without any commentary.

O Captain! My Captain!

BY WALT WHITMAN

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and de

image

One summer she goes into the field as usual
stopping for a bit at the pool where she often
looks at herself, to see
if she detects any changes. She sees
the same person, the horrible mantle
of daughterliness still clinging to her.

The sun seems, in the water, very close.
That's my uncle spying again, she thinks—
everything in nature is in some way her relative.
I am never alone, she thinks,
turning the thought into a prayer.
Then death appears, like the answer to a prayer.

No one understands anymore
how beautiful he was. But Persephone remembers.
Also that he embraced her, right there,
with her uncle watching. She remembers
sunlight flashing on his bare arms.

This is the last moment she remembers clearly.
Then the dark god bore her away.

She also remembers, less clearly,
the chilling insight that from this moment
she couldn't live without him again.

The girl who disappears from the po

Image link

After attending a talk where Kuo Jiang Hong spoke about how she once asked her mother whether her late father, Kuo Pao Kun, was really a Communist.
(Further context for non-Singaporeans: in our country's early years, the government was very militant in purging all traces of communism. Kuo Pao Kun, a playwright who wrote very political plays, was detained for over four years without trial on communist conspiracy charges, among others.)

The flipside of a conviction is an acquittal.
The upside of total despair is my denial.
There can be no downside.
There can be no middle ground
in this memory of home written on bare walls.
One man's life pivots upon a cutting edge
so let's pray the wind doesn't blow.
When innocence falls by the wayside
the flipside of anger is a calm demeanour.
But silence can be a strength, just as
too many words can be troublesome.
Do not trade kisses for hard kno

This is one of my favorites, because you can almost hear the dance music in the verses.

The Minuet (1879) by Mary Mapes Dodge

Grandma told me all about it,

Told me so I couldn’t doubt it,

How she danced—my Grandma danced!—.

Long ago.

How she held her pretty head,

How her dainty skirt she spread,

Turning out her little toes;

How she slowly leaned and rose—.

Long ago.

Grandma’s hair was bright and sunny;

Dimpled cheeks, too—ah, how funny!

Really quite a pretty girl,

Long ago.

Bless her! why, she wears a cap,

Grandma does, and takes a nap.

Every single day; and yet.

Grandma danced the minuet.

Long ago.

Now she sits there, rocking, rocking,

Always knitting Grandpa’s stocking—.

(Every girl was taught to knit.

Long ago.).

Yet her figure is so neat,

And her ways so staid and sweet,

I can almost see her now.

Bending to her partner’s bow,

Long ago.

Grandma says our modern jumping,

Hopping, rushing, whirling, bumping,

When I was a kid, my grandmother gave me a slender book titled “101 Classic Poems.” I’m 59, and this was hers when she was young, so these are some old timey poems! I can go through it and post some of them if anyone would be interested.

I.

HEAR the sledges with the bells —

Silver bells!

What a world of merriment their melody foretells!

How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

In the icy air of night!

While the stars that oversprinkle

All the heavens, seem to twinkle

With a crystalline delight;

Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells

From the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells —

From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II.

Hear the mellow wedding-bells

Golden bells!

What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!

Through the balmy air of night

How they ring out their delight! —

From the molten-golden notes,

And all in tune,

What a liquid ditty floats

To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats

On the moon!

Oh, from out the sounding cells,

What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!

How it swells!

How it dwells

On the Future! — how it tells

Of the rapture that impels

To the swinging and the ringing

Of the be

EDIT: /u/southsamurai has picked up the gauntlet. May the sun shine on all their days.

With only a modicum of regret, I am stepping away from Lemmy.

Nothing to do with this community or Lemmy itself. Love y'all.

Rather, since leaving reddit I've observed a huge improvement in my mental health and my feelings of personal effectiveness. I'm taking this as a sign to exit social media for now, as an exercise in overall self-care.

So I'm releasing this community to, well, whoever would like to step up! This will likely be my last post here, but I'll keep an eye on my inbox.

If there are any takers, just hmu.

image

And Still It Comes

like a downhill brakes-burned freight train
full of pig iron ingots, full of lead
life-size statues of Richard Nixon,
like an avalanche of smoke and black fog
lashed by bent pins, the broken-off tips
of switchblade knives, the dust of dried offal,
remorseless, it comes, faster when you turn your back,
faster when you turn to face it,
like a fine rain, then colder showers,
then downpour to razor sleet, then egg-size hail,
fist-size, then jagged
laser, shrapnel hail
thudding and tearing like footsteps
of drunk gods or fathers; it comes
polite, loutish, assured, suave,
breathing through its mouth
(which is a hole eaten by a cave),
it comes like an elephant annoyed,
like a black mamba terrified, it slides
down the valley, grease on grease,
like fire eating birds’ nests,
like fire melting the fuzz
off a baby’s skull, still it comes: mute
and gorging, never
to cease, insatiable,

Unknown artist but I love this poem so much