Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day? by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, …

Still I Rise by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may tread me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like …

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—    While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—            Only this and nothing more.”     Ah, …

Death, Be Not Proud by John Donne

Death, be not proud, though some have called theeMighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrowDie not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,And soonest our best men with thee do …

You gave the most beautiful smiles — Maxima

Written: © Maxima  I’m tired of tidying things upScattered around the place, it smells of chaste.Hairpins on the floor,lipstick smeared with the imagination of kissing,Blood agitated,That silent Wildness living in us. All that something and somehow Hidden in the fog,In the dense bushes of memories that creepand eat in theseMoments of drunken loneliness to hurt […]You …

I want birds tweeting — Maxima

Written: © Maxima  You know, my love,As the time goes byAnd the winter sets inMy only wish isTo keep warmOn the fire of your loveBut you’re far away…Actually, you are not!You’re here with meAnd millions of playful confettiCover usOur lips are oneSpeaking the languageOf hearts in love You know, my love,As the time goes byMore […]I …

G2: how to heal — rarasaur

Your body is not small. The total surface area of the human lung could be spread to the height of a brachiosaurus. If you want to heal,you must firstfind every bruised place. Your body is not obvious.It sheds forty thousand cellsevery minute,and who knows how many of thosewere the last to rememberthe bruising? Just in […]G2: …

The Tiger by William Blake

Tiger Tiger, burning bright,In the forests of the night;What immortal hand or eye,Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies.Burnt the fire of thine eyes?On what wings dare he aspire?What the hand, dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, and what art,Could twist the sinews of thy heart?And when thy heart began …

On His Blindness by John Milton

When I consider how my light is spentEre half my days in this dark world and wide,And that one talent which is death to hideLodg’d with me useless, though my soul more bentTo serve therewith my Maker, and presentMy true account, lest he returning chide,“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”I fondly ask. But Patience, to …

Fuhash (Obscenity): Where the ritual prohibiting ‘the head held high’ prevails

Pakistan’s legendary poet and thinker Faiz Ahmed Faiz said: Sacrificed be I at the altar of your lanes, my beloved nation, Where the ritual prohibiting ‘the head held high’ prevails Where the votary embarking on pilgrimages Cowers furtively: mutilation of his health and life fears!! Fuhash (obscenity) is perhaps the single most defining, politically used, manipulated, …

Because I could not stop for Death

by Emily Dickinson Because I could not stop for Death –He kindly stopped for me –The Carriage held but just Ourselves –And Immortality. We slowly drove – He knew no hasteAnd I had put awayMy labor and my leisure too,For His Civility – We passed the School, where Children stroveAt Recess – in the Ring …

Ode on a Grecian Urn by Keats

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,Sylvan historian, who canst thus expressA flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shapeOf deities or mortals, or of both,In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?What mad pursuit? What struggle to …

A Psalm of Life by Henry Wordsworth Longfellow

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,Life is but an empty dream!For the soul is dead that slumbers,And things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest!And the grave is not its goal;Dust thou art, to dust returnest,Was not spoken of the soul. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,Is our destined end or way;But …

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair,And having perhaps the better claim,Because it was grassy and wanted wear;Though as for …

A Prison Evening

Each star a rung, night comes down the spiral staircase of the evening. The breeze passes by so very close as if someone just happened to speak of love. In the courtyard, the trees are absorbed refugees embroidering maps of return on the sky. On the roof, the moon - lovingly, generously –  is turning …

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Joy And Sorrow: Khalil Jibran

Then a woman said, "Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow."And he answered:Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.And how else can it be?The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.Is not the cup that hold …

For Malcolm, A Year After, poetry by ETHERIDGE KNIGHT

Compose for Red a proper verse; Adhere to foot and strict iamb; Control the burst of angry words Or they might boil and break the dam. Or they might boil and overflow And drench me, drown me, drive me mad. So swear no oath, so shed no tear, And sing no song blue Baptist sad. …

Digging by Seamus Heaney

Between my finger and my thumb    The squat pen rests; snug as a gun. Under my window, a clean rasping sound    When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:    My father, digging. I look down Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds    Bends low, comes up twenty years away    Stooping in rhythm through potato drills    Where …