Poem Hunter: Poems - Poets - Poetry

My stuff is so vile, I am less than dust
while your gleam rends the mirror's heart.
My darkness lights the chafing-dish
before I am incinerated. A miner's boot
tramples my head, covering me with ashes.

Do you know my life's gist?
A condensed sliver of smoke, transformed
into a single spark, in feature and nature
starlike, your every facet a splendor,
light of the king's eye, the dagger's jewel.

Friend, be wise, the diamond replied, assume
a bezel's dignity! Loam strives to harden
to fill my bosom with radiance. Burn
because you are soft. Banish fear and grief.
Be hard as stone, be a diamond.
...

He's as high as a georgia pine, my father'd say, half laughing. southern trees
as measure, metaphor. highways lined with kudzu-covered southern trees.

fuchsia, lavender, white, light pink, purple : crape myrtle bouquets burst
open on sturdy branches of skin-smooth bark : my favorite southern trees.

one hundred degrees in the shade : we settle into still pools of humidity, moss-
dark, beneath live oaks. southern heat makes us grateful for southern trees.

the maples in our front yard flew in spring on helicopter wings. in fall, we

...

True love is hard to conquer,
Like inspiration that has been forged,
The foundation of every endeavor
So that this fleeting world may live.

Amid sacrifice, I endured everything,
Offering my presence at times of hardship.
I believed that through my actions I could reach fulfillment,
Yet contrary to my faith, you returned only sorrow.


...

Roses ruddy and roses white,
What are the joys that my heart discloses?
Sitting alone in the fading light
Memories come to me here tonight
With the wonderful scent of the big red roses.
Memories come as the daylight fades
Down on the hearth where the firelight dozes;
Flicker and flutter the lights and shades,
And I see the face of a queen of maids
Whose memory comes with the scent of roses.

Visions arise of a scent of mirth,
And a ball-room belle who superbly poses -
A queenly woman of queenly worth,
And I am the happiest man on earth
With a single flower from a bunch of roses.

Only her memory lives tonight -
God in his wisdom her young life closes;
Over her grave may the turf be light,
Cover her coffin with roses white
She was always fond of the big white roses.

*

Such are the visions that fade away -
Man proposes and God disposes;
Look in the glass and I see today
Only an old man, worn and grey,
Bending his head to a bunch of roses.
...

I had walked since dawn and lay down to rest on a bare hillside
Above the ocean. I saw through half-shut eyelids a vulture wheeling
high up in heaven,
And presently it passed again, but lower and nearer, its orbit
narrowing,
I understood then
That I was under inspection. I lay death-still and heard the flight-
feathers
Whistle above me and make their circle and come nearer.
I could see the naked red head between the great wings

...

Earth is a wonderful place to live,
Where humans breathe in and out oxygen,
Animals eat food and drink water to
survive,
So plants don't die they need water and sunlight,
They also need to be taken care of,
Trees take a long time to grow,
By having soil, water and sunlight,
The Earth has been created with so much love
...

LIGHT human nature is too lightly tost
And ruffled without cause, complaining on--
Restless with rest, until, being overthrown,
It learneth to lie quiet. Let a frost
Or a small wasp have crept to the inner-most
Of our ripe peach, or let the wilful sun
Shine westward of our window,--straight we run
A furlong's sigh as if the world were lost.
But what time through the heart and through the brain
God hath transfixed us,--we, so moved before,
Attain to a calm. Ay, shouldering weights of pain,
We anchor in deep waters, safe from shore,
And hear submissive o'er the stormy main
God's chartered judgments walk for evermore.
...

Whenever you're called on to make up your mind,
and you're hampered by not having any,
the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find,
is simply by spinning a penny.
No -- not so that chance shall decide the affair
while you're passively standing there moping;
but the moment the penny is up in the air,
you suddenly know what you're hoping.
...

You ask me, could I live
If I lost half my blood
And half my head?

I ask you, could you walk
With half an arm
And half a leg?

And how could I talk
With no mother

...