PPR Poems

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The Emperor's Garden

Once,in the sultry heat of Midsummer,
An Emperor caused the miniature mountains in his garden
To be covered with white silk,
That so crowned
They might cool his eyes
With the sparkle of snow.

Amy Lowell

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold.
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost

Loveliest of trees,the cherry now,
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now,of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

A.E. Housman

Tiger-Lilly

To have reached
the ultimate top
of the stalk,
single,tall,fragile;
to hang like a bell,
through sheer weight
of oneself,
rather than pride of
it being the top,
no higher to go,
rather than modesty
of it being
only a stalk,
one among myriads;
to have one's six petals,
refusing the straight
for the curve,
dipping mere pin- pricks
around the horizon;
to have six tongues;
which,however the mood
of the wind may blow,
refuse to clap into sound;
and to keep,withal,
one's finest marvel,
one's passionate specks,
invisible:
tiger-lily,
if I bow,
it is not
in imitation;
it is
in recognition
of true being.

Alfred Kreymborg

A Year Passes

Beyond the porcelain fence of the pleasure-garden,
I hear the frogs in the blue-green rice fields;
But the sword-shaped moon
Has cut my heart in two.

Amy Lowell
(1874-1925)

Not your kind of people

We are not your kind of people.
You seem kind of phoney,
everything's a lie.

We are not your kind of people
Something in your makeup,
don't see eye to eye

We are not your kind of people
Don't want to be like you,
ever in our lives.

We are not your kind of people
Find when you start talking,
there's nothing but white noise.

Run around trying to fit in,
wanting to be loved.
It doesn't take much,
for someone to shut you down.
When you build a shell,
build an onion in your mind.
You cant sit still,
and you don't like hanging round the crowd,
They don't understand.

You dropped by,
as I was sleeping,
You came by to see,
the whole commotion.
And when I woke,
I started laughing.
The jokes on me,
for not believing.

We are not your kind of people
Speak a different language
we see through your lies.

We are not your kind of people
Won't be cast as demons,
creatures you despise.

We are extraordinary people
We are extraordinary people
We are extraordinary people
We are extraordinary people

- Garbage

(I know, I know... It's not a poem, but a song...)

Here is one I had published:

Ad Infinitum

I have flowed in and out of you infinite times
In another reality we are indistinguishable
Prejudices aside
The flesh we wear, a barrier we carry
Created by human folly
Call it Experience
Out of a single possibility

The Shadow

Soft as the bed in the earth
Where a stone has lain-
So soft,so smooth and so cool,
Spring closes me in
With her arms and her hands.

Rich as the smell
Of new earth on a stone,
That has lain,breathing
The damp through it's pores-
Spring closes me in
With her blossomy hair;
Brings dark to my eyes.


William Carlos Williams
(1883-1963)

big bang.


as the center of entirety extends toward times end,
it maximizes improbability,
and it fends it's truth into a bend.

subtendeth dost it gently back toward it's core again.
it's a route all mass must follow.
and when it comes together amen!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !

Engaged

Stretched out on the grass
a boy and a girl.
Sucking their oranges,giving their kisses
like waves exchanging foam.

Stretched out on the beach
a boy and a girl.
Sucking their limes,giving their kisses,
like clouds exchanging foam.

Stretched out underground
a boy and a girl.
saying nothing,never kissing,
Giving silence for silence.


Octavio Paz

If There Be Sorrow

If there be sorrow
let it be
for things undone...
undreamed
unrealized
unattained
to these add one:
Love withheld...
....restrained



Mari Evans

Tewa Song of War

Eat,eat,while there is bread,
Drink,drink while there is water;
A day comes when dust shall darken the air
When a blight shall wither the land,
When a cloud shall rise,
When a mountain shall be lifted up,
When a strong man shall seize the city,
When ruin shall fall upon all things,
When the tender leaf shall be destroyed,
When eyes shall be closed in death;
When there shall be three signs on one tree,
Father,son and grandfather hanging dead on the same tree;
When the battle flag shall be raised,
And the people scattered abroad in the forest.


Trans. from the Mayan by Daniel G.Brinton