Remember Poems

Popular Remember Poems

Duino Elegies: The First Elegy

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed
because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Each single angel is terrifying.
And so I force myself, swallow and hold back
the surging call of my dark sobbing.

......

The Supply Teacher

by Allan Ahlberg

Here's the rule for what to do
If ever your teacher has the flu
Or for some other reason takes to her bed
And a different teacher comes instead

When the visiting teacher hangs up her hat
Writes the date on the board, does this or that
Always remember, you have to say this,
OUR teacher never does that, Miss!

......

First Day At School

by Roger McGough

A millionbillionwillion miles from home
Waiting for the bell to go. (To go where?)
Why are they all so big, other children?
So noisy? So much at home they
Must have been born in uniform
Lived all their lives in playgrounds
Spent the years inventing games
That don't let me in. Games
That are rough, that swallow you up.

......

Poem

by Elizabeth Bishop

About the size of an old-style dollar bill,
American or Canadian,
mostly the same whites, gray greens, and steel grays
-this little painting (a sketch for a larger one?)
has never earned any money in its life.
Useless and free., it has spent seventy years
as a minor family relic handed along collaterally to owners
who looked at it sometimes, or didn't bother to.

It must be Nova Scotia; only there

......

The Man From Iron Bark

by Banjo Paterson

It was the man from Ironbark who struck the Sydney town,
He wandered over street and park, he wandered up and down.
He loitered here he loitered there, till he was like to drop,
Until at last in sheer despair he sought a barber's shop.
'Ere! shave my beard and whiskers off, I'll be a man of mark,
I'll go and do the Sydney toff up home in Ironbark.'
The barber man was small and flash, as barbers mostly are,
He wore a strike-your-fancy sash he smoked a huge cigar;
He was a humorist of note and keen at repartee,
He laid the odds and kept a 'tote', whatever that may be,

......

Recent Remember Poems

“The Sound of Then”

by Kevin Schroeder

“The Sound of Then”

I heard your voice—
a flicker through static,
soft as dust on an old cassette.
And suddenly,
I wasn’t here at all.

I was there—
back in summer’s too-loud laughter,

......

Echoes in the Quiet

by Kevin Schroeder

We walked together, side by side,
through years that flickered, then passed us by.
Laughter lingered, voices bright,
until silence claimed the stars at night.

Now echoes press against the air,
soft reminders that you were there.
Time untangles, then lets you go,
yet in my heart, you still echo.