Strength Poems
Shema
by Primo Levi
You who live secure
In your warm houses
Who return at evening to find
Hot food and friendly faces:
Consider whether this is a man,
Who labours in the mud
Who knows no peace
Who fights for a crust of bread
Who dies at a yes or a no.
......
The Country Of Marriage
by Wendell Berry
I.
I dream of you walking at night along the streams
of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs
of birds opening around you as you walk.
You are holding in your body the dark seed of my sleep.
II.
This comes after silence. Was it something I said
......
The Tower Of The Dream
by Charles Harpur
Part I
HOW wonderful are dreams! If they but be
As some have said, the thin disjoining shades
Of thoughts or feelings, long foregone or late,
All interweaving, set in ghostly act
And strange procession, fair, grotesque, or grim,
By mimic fancy; wonderful no less
Are they though this be true and wondrous more
Is she, who in the dark, and stript of sense,
Can wield such sovereignty—the Queen of Art!
......
The Channel Swimmer
by Marriott Edgar
Would you hear a Wild tale of adventure
Of a hero who tackled the sea,
A super-man swimming the ocean,
Then hark to the tale of Joe Lee.
Our Channel, our own Straits of Dover
Had heen swum by an alien lot:
Our British-born swimmers had tried it,
But that was as far as they'd got.
......
The Law Of The Jungle
by Rudyard Kipling
Now this is the Law of the Jungle -- as old and as true as the sky; And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die. AAs the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back --
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.
Wash daily from nose-tip to tail-tip; drink deeply, but never too deep;
And remember the night is for hunting, and forget not the day is for sleep.
The Jackal may follow the Tiger, but, Cub, when thy whiskers are grown,
Remember the Wolf is a Hunter -- go forth and get food of thine own.
Keep peace withe Lords of the Jungle -- the Tiger, the Panther, and Bear.
And trouble not Hathi the Silent, and mock not the Boar in his lair.
When Pack meets with Pack in the Jungle, and neither will go from the trail,
Lie down till the leaders have spoken -- it may be fair words shall prevail.
......
A hard man
by John HughesI want to be a hard man to defeat all the evil I encounter in the world, but with my ego I would turn bad and pretty soon I would be up against a hard just man wanting to defeat all the evil he encounters.
Continue readingUnbreakable
by Mario Odekerken
I have been bent
by storms I didn't see coming,
pushed to edges
I didn't know existed.
There were days
when everI carried
threatened to shatter me-
grief doubt,the weight of silence.
......
Barefoot on shattered glass
by Mario Odekerken
I keep walking.
Not because I'm brave-
because I don't know where else to go.
The floor cuts deep.
Thin lines open,
quiet red truths rising to the surface.
Every step says:stop.
Bij I don't.
......
From the roots up
by Mario Odekerken
Beneath the soil where secrets sleep,
in shadows dark and silence deep,
a seed once cast without a sound
began to stir beneath the ground.
No witness marked the moment small,
when life first stirred beneath it all,
but roots reached down with quiet grace,
to find their hold,to claim their place.
......
Groß,Größer,am Größten
by Mario Odekerken
Zuerst war da ein Schritt,
vorsichtig, klein,
aber voller Richtung.
Dann kam der Sprung,
mit offenen Augen,
ausgestreckten Armen,
Herz voller Erwartung.
Jetzt stehst du da,
......
