Childhood Poems
A Ritual To Read To Each Other
by William Stafford
If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.
......
To Lou Andreas-Salome
by Rainer Maria Rilke
I held myself too open, I forgot
that outside not just things exist and animals
fully at ease in themselves, whose eyes
reach from their lives' roundedness no differently
than portraits do from frames; forgot that I
with all I did incessantly crammed
looks into myself; looks, opinion, curiosity.
Who knows: perhaps eyes form in space
and look on everywhere. Ah, only plunged toward you
does my face cease being on display, grows
......
Peace
by Patrick Kavanagh
And sometimes I am sorry when the grass
Is growing over the stones in quiet hollows
And the cocksfoot leans across the rutted cart-pass
That I am not the voice of country fellows
Who now are standing by some headland talking
Of turnips and potatoes or young corn
Of turf banks stripped for victory.
Here Peace is still hawking
His coloured combs and scarves and beads of horn.
......
In Memory Of Alfred Pollexfen
by William Butler Yeats
FIVE-AND-TWENTY years have gone
Since old William pollexfen
Laid his strong bones down in death
By his wife Elizabeth
In the grey stone tomb he made.
And after twenty years they laid
In that tomb by him and her
His son George, the astrologer;
And Masons drove from miles away
To scatter the Acacia spray
......
Green Fields
by William Stanley Merwin
By this part of the century few are left who believe
in the animals for they are not there in the carved parts
of them served on plates and the pleas from the slatted trucks
are sounds of shadows that possess no future
there is still game for the pleasure of killing
and there are pets for the children but the lives that followed
courses of their own other than ours and older
have been migrating before us some are already
far on the way and yet Peter with his gaunt cheeks
and point of white beard the face of an aged Lawrence
......
Finding my voice
by Rachel Osborne
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God.
In the beginning were church words,
lessons to be read to the rapt congregation.
Step up to the lecturn. Projection, enunciation.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Sit down, kneel down, stand up, sing.
My sister and I knew all the lines, we mouthed along, we rolled our eyes.
The words of the Father, our father, preaching, teaching,
......
When i met a poem
by Malik F.
I was little son
wehen i met a poem
i was little son
when i met a song
I was little son
when i met a tone
i was little son
when i met a tune
......
My Home
by Pauline Grey
Two figures pressing their icy lips together,
Stiff arms lovingly locked in a stony embrace.
Kids climbing up, resting their feet on steady arms.
Attempting to ascend higher, to play older, taller than they are.
Loud laughter as they fall, one after the other.
I head home, my home, with a grin splitting my face.
Lying on my bed, wishing to have as much charm
And smarts as Big Sister, I gaze at the -by far-
Best bookcase. Simple, with no intricate designs.
Treasured books leaning on each other for support,
......
An angel in disguise
by Reem Khalaf
She took my hands I was 9
Giving me her other bud
And telling me just listen and enjoy the ride
Close your eyes and let me take you to the moon
She a woman of her words
Putting my feet above the clouds
And pushing me from the moon
Back to earth on my hands and knees
Waving and smiling from the moon back at me
looking up at her with my split temple
......
The Shooting Star
by Denish Aloo
Deep in the village, far from city's charm and gleam,
Primitive childhood days, with toys of mud we’d dream,
Swinging on tall tree branches, our airplanes up the skyways,
Butt scooting down the anthills, our high-end cars on highways.
Once a moonlit night so clear, with dazzling constellations afar
Would unveil a gem so rare, the SHOOTING STAR,
The stellar herald, our surest destiny's bearer,
That carried our dreams, through heavens' mirror.
......
