The Waking
    Theodore Roethke
     
     
    I strolled across
    An open field;
    The sun was out;
    Heat was happy.
     
    This way! This way!
    The wren’s throat shimmered,
    Either to other
    The blossoms sang.
     
    The stones sang,
    The little ones did,
    And flowers jumped
    Like small goats.
     
    A ragged fringe
    Of daisies waved;
    I wasn’t alone
    In a grove of apples.
     
    Far in the wood
    A nestling sighed;
    The dew loosened
    Its morning smells.
     
    I came where the river
    Ran over stones:
    My ears knew
    An early joy.
     
    And all the waters
    Of all the streams
    Sang in my veins
    That summer day.
     
     
    Contributed by Leanna Derrenbacher
     
     
     
     
     
    If I Had But Two Little Wings
    Samuel Taylor Coleridge
     
    If I had but two little wings
    And were a little feathery bird,
     To you I’d fly my dear!
    But thoughts like these are idle things
     And I stay here.
     
     
    But in my sleep to you I fly:
    I’m always with you in my sleep!
     The world is all one’s own.
    But then one wakes, and where am I?
     All, all alone.
     
     
    Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids:
    So I love to wake ere break of day:
     For though my sleep will be gone,
    Yet while ‘tis dark, one shuts one’s lids,
     And still dreams on.
     
     
     
    Contributed by Amber Stephens
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    For a Dead Kitten
    Sara Henderson Hay
     
    Put the rubber mouse away,
    Pick the spools up from the floor,
    What was velvet-shod, and gay,
    Will not want them any more.
     
    What was warm, is strangely cold.
    Whence dissolved the little breath?
    How could this small body hold
    So immense a thing as Death?
     
     
     
    Contributed by Cheyenne DeMarco
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Only One of My Deaths
    Dean Young
     
    Because it seems the only way to save the roses
    is to pluck the Japanese beetles out of
    their convoluted paradise
    and kill them, I think for a moment,
    instead of crushing them in the driveway,
    of impaling them on the thorns.
    Perhaps they’d prefer that.
     
     
     
    Contributed by Jesse James
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Goofing Again
    Gary Snyder
     
     
    Goofing again
    I shifted weight the wrong way
    flipping the plank end-over
    dumping me down in the bilge
    & splatting a gallon can
    of thick sticky dark red
    italian deck paint
    over the fresh white bulkhead.
    such a trifling move
    & such spectacular results.
    now I have to pain the wall again
    & salvage only from it all a poem.
     
     
     
    Contributed by John Nesbitt
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Too Blue
    Langston Hughes
     
     
    I got those sad old weary blues.
    I don’t know where to turn.
    I don’t know where to go.
    Nobody cares about you
    When you sink so low.
     
     
    What shall I do?
    What shall I say?
    Shall I take a gun and
    Put myself away?
     
     
    I wonder if
    One bullet would do?
    Hard as my head is,
    It would probably take two.
     
    But I ain’t got
    Neither bullet nor gun –
    And I’m too blue
    To look for one.
     
     
     
    Contributed by Michelle Mozzer
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    On Reading in the Morning Paper That Dreams
    My Be Only Nonsense
    Billly Collins
     
     
    We might have guessed as much, given the nightly
    Absurdities, the extravagant circus of dark.
    You hit the pillow and moments later your mother
    Appears as a llama, shouting at you in another language.
     
     
    Or you find yourself drowning in a sea of breasts,
    Or drowning in a sea of basketballs –
    Those who have attended night school might be quick
    To explain the difference.
     
    Or the nonsense is just a scrambling of the day before,
    Everyone walking around the office stark naked,
    The elevator doors opening on to deep space,
    The clambshells from lunch floating by in slow motion.
     
     
    Too bad Freud isn’t here to hear this news,
    Maybe some pharaohs too, druids and wide-eyed diviners,
    All gathered around my kitchen table
    In their exotic clothes, their pale mouths moving
    Silently, as in a dream,
     
     
    And me pouring coffee for everyone, proffering smokes,
    Pacing around in my bathrobe reading the paper out loud.
     
     
    But the scene would soon swirl away
    And I would find myself alone in some fix,
    Screaming within the confines of an hourglass,
    Being driven to the opera by a blind chauffeur
     
    Or waking up to the chilling evidence on the bedroom floor:
    A small pile of sand, a white bow tie.
     
     
     
    Random Contribution by Miss James
     
     
     
    The History Teacher
    Billy Collins
     
    Trying to protect his students’ innocence
    He told them the Ice Age was really just
    The Chilly Age, a period of a million years
    When everyone had to wear sweaters.
     
     
    And the Stone Age became the Gravel Age,
    Named after the long driveways of the time.
     
     
    The Spanish Inquisition was nothing more
    Than an outbreak of questions such as
    “How far is it from here to Madrid?”
    “What do you call the matador’s hat?”
     
     
    The War of the Roses took place in a garden,
    And the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom on Japan.
     
     
    The children would leave his classroom
    For the playground to torment the weak
    And the smart,
    Mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses,
     
     
     
    While he gathered up his notes and walked home
    Past flower beds and white picket fences,
    Wondering if they would believe that soldiers
    In the Boer War told long, rambling stories
    Designed to make the enemy nod off.
     
     
    Another random contribution courtesy of Miss James
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Two Friends
    David Ignatow
     
    I have something to tell you.
    I’m listening.
    I’m dying.
    I’m sorry to hear.
    I’m growing old.
    It’s terrible.
    It is, I thought you should know.
    Of course I’m sorry. Keep in touch.
    I will and you too.
    And let me know what’s new.
    Certainly, though it can’t be much.
    And stay well.
    And you too.
    And go slow.
    And you too.
     
    Contributed by Tom Miller
     
     
     

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