February 2010
60 posts
“Today more than ever we need creative minds to address the issues of the age....”
– King Abdullah II (via ceruleansearch) (via mirrorsandmirages)
4 tags
He Had His Dream by Paul Laurens Dunbar
He had his dream, and all through life, Worked up to it through toil and strife. Afloat fore’er before his eyes, It colored for him all his skies: The storm-cloud dark Above his bark, The calm and listless vault of blue Took on its hopeful hue, It tinctured every passing beam — He had his dream. He labored hard and failed at last, His sails too weak to...
“Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,
Much fruit of sense beneath...”
– Alexander Pope (via innocentsimplicity) (via libraryland)
3 tags
“Absence is to love what wind is to fire - it extinguishes the small and inflames...”
– Richard Paul Evans, The Sunflower (via saranghay)
6 tags
“The Grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and...”
– Allan K. Chalmers (via tiredheart)
4 tags
We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar
We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,— This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, And mouth with myriad subtleties. Why should the world be overwise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us, while We wear the mask. We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries To thee from tortured souls arise....
“This is what I know: We are all a volume on the shelf of the library, a story...”
– from “Honey Baby Sweetheart” by Deb Caletti (via sarahmariev) (via libraryland)
5 tags
“Whereas story is processed in the mind in a straightforward manner, poetry...”
– Jasper Fforde (via daniellaa) (via libraryland)
“Love is a sort of madness,
I grant that, but a madness over which philosophy is...”
– Casanova (via thoughtsfree)
“I’m a thousand miles from nowhere
Time don’t matter to me
‘Cause I’m a...”
– Dwight Yoakam (via troubleinharlem)
4 tags
“…there’s no easy answer that will take your pain away…life...”
– from The Shack by WM. Paul Young
4 tags
They flee from me by Thomas Wyatt
They flee from me that sometime did me seek With naked foot stalking in my chamber. I have seen them gentle tame and meek That now are wild and do not remember That sometime they put themselves in danger To take bread at my hand; and now they range Busily seeking with a continual change. Thanked be fortune, it hath been otherwise Twenty times better; but once in special, In thin array after a...
3 tags
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“To melt and be like a running brook
That sings its melody to the night.
To...”
– Kahlil Gibran (via libraryland)
Never miss a chance to dance
pseudopoetry:
Do not conceal
How it can feel
To be taken
By the sorrow
Of not dancing
3 tags
Monday's Child by Colin McNaughton
Monday’s child is red and spotty, Tuesday’s child wont use the potty. Wednesday’s child wont go to bed, Thursday’s child will not be fed. Friday’s child breaks all his toys. Saturday’s child makes an awful noise. And the child that was born on the seventh day, Is a pain in the neck like all the rest, OK.
4 tags
Please Mrs Butler by Allan Ahlberg
Please Mrs Butler This boy Derek Drew Keeps copying my work, Miss. What shall I do? Go and sit in the hall, dear. Go and sit in the sink. Take your books on the roof, my lamb. Do whatever you think. Please Mrs Butler This boy Derek Drew Keeps taking my rubber, Miss. What shall I do? Keep it in your hand, dear. Hide it up your vest. Swallow it if you like, love. Do what you think best. Please Mrs...
4 tags
Bloody Men by Wendy Cope
Bloody men are like bloody buses - You wait for about a year And as soon as one approaches your stop Two or three others appear. You look at them flashing their indicators, Offering you a ride. You’re trying to read the destinations, You haven’t much time to decide. If you make a mistake, there is no turning back. Jump off, and you’ll stand there and gaze While the cars and the...
The Man, Lisa C. Taylor
poetry365:
I like the parts of you that are not the parts of me, the furry paws of your knees and the angular metal of your upper arm. So often I turn to touch softness and find taut rope and hard glass.
My body stretches elastic to meet and hold forum with the hollow of your back. I crawl under your thrown face and find moist refuge.
In such moments I forget your bones and fingernails. I...
3 tags
by Emily Dickinson
We outgrow love like other things,
And put it in the drawer,
Till it an antique fashion shows
Like costumes grandsires wore.
6 tags
by Emily Dickinson
For each ecstatic instant We must an anguish pay In keen and quivering ratio To the ecstasy. For each beloved hour Sharp pittances of years, Bitter contested farthings And coffers heaped with tears.
“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr. (via troubleinharlem)
2 tags
“I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair...”
– From I’m Nobody! Who are You? by Emily Dickinson
pseudopoetry:
I plucked a star from the night stream
Though I’m no astronaut
I wrote a couplet
And a verse or two
Though I’m no poet
I know little bout fancy or romance
But I plucked a star from the studded sky
Not knowing the reasons why
4 tags
Antonia's Story by Owen Sheers
She told me how she fell asleep with the sound of his fists
on the door
dull thuds that echoed on the stairs,
that became the beat of her heart on the sheet,
the rustle of blood in her ear on the pillow, then sleep
Of how she slept a dark sleep with only one dream,
of an apple ripening, then falling a fall.
Its loud thud echoing on in the night
in the beat of her heart on the sheet.
...
7 tags
Still I Rise by Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod 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 suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I’ll rise.
Did you want...
5 tags
Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size But when I start to tell them, They think I’m telling lies. I say, It’s in the reach of my arms The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me. I walk into a room Just as cool as you please, And to...
5 tags
No Coward Soul is Mine by Emily Brontë
No coward soul is mine, No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere: I see Heaven’s glories shine, And faith shines equal, arming me from fear. O God within my breast, Almighty, ever-present Deity! Life—that in me has rest, As I—undying Life—have Power in Thee! Vain are the thousand creeds That move men’s hearts: unutterably vain;...
4 tags
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Hope is the thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
