Innocence Poems
The Lovers Of The Poor
by Gwendolyn Brooks
arrive. The Ladies from the Ladies' Betterment League
Arrive in the afternoon, the late light slanting
In diluted gold bars across the boulevard brag
Of proud, seamed faces with mercy and murder hinting
Here, there, interrupting, all deep and debonair,
The pink paint on the innocence of fear;
Walk in a gingerly manner up the hall.
Cutting with knives served by their softest care,
Served by their love, so barbarously fair.
Whose mothers taught: You'd better not be cruel!
......
To His Mistress Going To Bed
by John Donne
Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy,
Until I labour, I in labour lie.
The foe oft-times having the foe in sight,
Is tired with standing though they never fight.
Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glistering,
But a far fairer world encompassing.
Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear,
That th' eyes of busy fools may be stopped there.
Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime
Tells me from you, that now 'tis your bed time.
......
Michael Who Walks By Night
by Reginald Shepherd
For his sake drifting away from the true
windlessness, torn sails the aftermath
of him: white canvas suffering too vaguely
from the beautiful agreeing with these arguments,
but far away: sought him, found him
not, distant from image, archetype, the typical
sublime’s encroachments, archaeology
of his innocence which is to be destroyed. Shaped,
shaping, shapes, and shape, the neverwhere
......
Lament
by Dylan Thomas
When I was a windy boy and a bit
And the black spit of the chapel fold,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of women),
I tiptoed shy in the gooseberry wood,
The rude owl cried like a tell-tale tit,
I skipped in a blush as the big girls rolled
Nine-pin down on donkey's common,
And on seesaw sunday nights I wooed
Whoever I would with my wicked eyes,
The whole of the moon I could love and leave
......
The Farmer's Daughter
by Robert William Service
The Rector met a little lass
Who led a heifer by a rope.
Said he: "Why don't you go to Mass?
Do you not want to please the Pope?"
The village maiden made reply,
As on the rope she ceased to pull:
"My father said this morning I
Must take Paquerette to see the bull."
......
I have an idiot inside me
by Calpurnia Bee
I have an idiot inside me, who weeps,
who weeps and does not know,
who looks only at the light,
the light that does not know.
I have the child, the foolish child,
as if standing in God,
a god who knows nothing
but loving and weeping —
weeping through the nights
......
INSPIRE
by Grace K N
Who's gonna defend that innocence?
Who will speak on her behalf?
Maybe she longs for a friend
Or maybe she lost her half.
Her circle may've been rough on her;
She may've been pushed to struggle.
Her mind may not have endured
The infectious minds that boggle.
......
Advanced
by Kara Prince
They told me I was advanced when they accepted me for an internship at the United Nations at fourteen.
I was standing in international territory when I got my first dick pic.
He told me I was advanced that first week when he asked to meet me far away from campus.
People called it a public Ivy and said my course load was advanced.
I knew to refer to him as advanced, too; my parents raised me not to say “old”.
The doctor kept using the word advanced when he described the disease that was stealing my grandfather from me, but all I could focus on was the way his hand was advancing down my back.
I want to go back to school for an advanced degree, but I’m hung up on what other advances will be brought to my life.
Steps of innocence
by Mario Odekerken
Small feet on silent ground,
unaware of the weight
the world prepares.
Eyes wide,
not yet trained to search
for danger in shadows.
Each step,
a question
......
The Road of Innocence
by Mario Odekerken
It begins
in the quiet breath of morning,
where the air still trusts
every step you take.
Shadows are soft here,
and the sky has not yet
learned the weight of storms.
Each footprint
......
