Believe Poems
We Refugees
by Benjamin Zephaniah
I come from a musical place
Where they shoot me for my song
And my brother has been tortured
By my brother in my land.
I come from a beautiful place
Where they hate my shade of skin
They don't like the way I pray
And they ban free poetry.
......
The Happiest Day
by Linda Pastan
It was early May, I think
a moment of lilac or dogwood
when so many promises are made
it hardly matters if a few are broken.
My mother and father still hovered
in the background, part of the scenery
like the houses I had grown up in,
and if they would be torn down later
that was something I knew
but didn't believe. Our children were asleep
......
Nature Trail
by Benjamin Zephaniah
At the bottom of my garden
There's a hedgehog and a frog
And a lot of creepy-crawlies
Living underneath a log,
There's a baby daddy long legs
And an easy-going snail
And a family of woodlice,
All are on my nature trail.
There are caterpillars waiting
......
Anywhere Out Of The World
by Charles Baudelaire
This life is a hospital where every patient is possessed with the desire to change beds; one man would like to
suffer in front of the stove, and another believes that he would recover his health beside the window.
It always seems to me that I should feel well in the place where I am not, and this question of removal is one
which I discuss incessantly with my soul.
'Tell me, my soul, poor chilled soul, what do you think of going to live in Lisbon? It must be warm there, and there
you would invigorate yourself like a lizard. This city is on the sea-shore; they say that it is built of marble
and that the people there have such a hatred of vegetation that they uproot all the trees. There you have a landscape
that corresponds to your taste! a landscape made of light and mineral, and liquid to reflect them!'
My soul does not reply.
'Since you are so fond of stillness, coupled with the show of movement, would you like to settle in Holland,
......
"Booh!"
by Eugene Field
On afternoons, when baby boy has had a splendid nap,
And sits, like any monarch on his throne, in nurse's lap,
In some such wise my handkerchief I hold before my face,
And cautiously and quietly I move about the place;
Then, with a cry, I suddenly expose my face to view,
And you should hear him laugh and crow when I say "Booh"!
Sometimes the rascal tries to make believe that he is scared,
And really, when I first began, he stared, and stared, and stared;
And then his under lip came out and farther out it came,
......
Myself
by Gayatri Puri
I lived by myself
So, I healed up myself
Started understanding myself
Rather than doubting myself
I stood up for myself,
I fought with myself
Until I got dependent on myself.
Yes, it sounds selfish,
But trust me
Sometimes, it's okay
......
and I believed them
by Bogdan Dragos
the voices said
there's nothing like
waking up deep into the night
and not hearing any voices
and I believed them
Let Me Tell You What I Know
by Ololade Raji
Been around you know…
But let me tell you what I know
When Fate refuses to smile at you
And Nature condemns you to the rank of the wretched
Does that mean you should accept the sentence to suffer?
The key to life is to keep on living
Hoping that someday, somehow, something will happen to make it better
But until then, I do not have to beg for my living
Forget the fact that I did not come to this world with anything
......
I Sing The Body Electric
by Walt Whitman
I SING the Body electric;
The armies of those I love engirth me, and I engirth them;
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the
Soul.
Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal
themselves;
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the
dead?
......
Song Of The Open Road
by Walt Whitman
AFOOT and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune--I myself am good fortune;
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Strong and content, I travel the open road.
The earth--that is sufficient;
I do not want the constellations any nearer;
......
