Category Archives: Poetry

I’ve been… A Poem

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I’ve been young

I’ve been old

I’ve been weak

I’ve been bold

I’ve been rich

I’ve been poor

I’ve known what it’s like

To want so much more

I’ve lived out my days

And been up all nights

Yet, I’ve learned to fight the fight

I’ve been weak

I’ve been strong

I’ve walked a crooked path

For far too long

I’ve been grounded

I have fled

I’ve been alive

I’ve been dead

I’ve been generous

And I’ve been kind

I’ve been reckless

And fallen behind

I’ve been high

I’ve been low

And through it all

This much I know

Today, my feet are planted firmly on the ground.

 

Angela C. Ragosa

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The Paradox of Our Age

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“The Paradox of Our Age”

by Bob Moorehead, Words Aptly Spoken

We have taller buildings but shorter tempers; wider freeways but narrower viewpoints; we spend more but have less; we buy more but enjoy it less; we have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, yet less time; we have more degrees but less sense; more knowledge but less judgment; more experts, yet more problems; we have more gadgets but less satisfaction; more medicine, yet less wellness; we take more vitamins but see fewer results. We drink too much; smoke too much; spend too recklessly; laugh too little; drive too fast; get too angry quickly; stay up too late; get up too tired; read too seldom; watch TV too much and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values; we fly in faster planes to arrive there quicker, to do less and return sooner; we sign more contracts only to realize fewer profits; we talk too much; love too seldom and lie too often. We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life; we’ve added years to life, not life to years. We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor. We’ve conquered outer space, but not inner space; we’ve done larger things, but not better things; we’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul; we’ve split the atom, but not our prejudice; we write more, but learn less; plan more, but accomplish less; we make faster planes, but longer lines; we learned to rush, but not to wait; we have more weapons, but less peace; higher incomes, but lower morals; more parties, but less fun; more food, but less appeasement; more acquaintances, but fewer friends; more effort, but less success. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but have less communication; drive smaller cars that have bigger problems; build larger factories that produce less. We’ve become long on quantity, but short on quality.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; tall men, but short character; steep in profits, but shallow relationships. These are times of world peace, but domestic warfare; more leisure and less fun; higher postage, but slower mail; more kinds of food, but less nutrition. These are days of two incomes, but more divorces; these are times of fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, cartridge living, throw-away morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies and pills that do everything from cheer, to prevent, quiet or kill. It is a time when there is much in the show window and nothing in the stock room. Indeed, these are the times!”

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Mad Girl by Sylvia Plath

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“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;

I lift my lids and all is born again.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

 

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,

And arbitrary blackness gallops in:

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

 

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed

And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

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Invictus…

“Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

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WRITING POETRY…

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Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.
This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must,” then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse. Then come close to Nature. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose…

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Begin summer by ingrid jonker

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Begin summer and the sea
a cracked-open quince
the sky like a child’s
balloon
far above the water
Under the umbrellas
like stripy sugarsticks

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The Face of Love by Ingrid Jonker by Ingrid Jonker

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Your face is the face of all the others
before you and after you and
your eyes calm as a blue
dawn breaking time on time

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“After a Very Long Difficult Day” By Brenda Hillman

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You talk to your loved ones
at night. It is a kind of modernism:
color sees into you, thinks a warm
path, a tint of meaning brought
from how you feel. Then, you are double:

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I repeat you by Ingrid Jonker

 

Ingrid Jonker (19 September 1933 – 19 July 1965) was a South African poet. Although she wrote in Afrikaans, her poems have been widely translated into other languages. Ingrid Jonker has reached iconic status in South Africa and is often called the South African Sylvia Plath, owing to the intensity of her work and the tragic course of her turbulent life. Her work has also been compared to that of Anne Sexton. During the night of 19 July 1965, Jonker went to the beach at Three Anchor Bay in Cape Town where she walked into the sea and committed suicide by drowning.

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Little grain of sand by Ingrid Jonker

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Little grain of sand
Grain little grain of sand
pebble rolled in my hand
pebble thrust in my pocket
a keepsake for a locket
Little sun big in the blue
a granule I make out of you
shine in my pebble little grain
for the moment that’s all I can gain
Baby that screams from the womb
nothing is big in this tomb
quietly laugh now and speak
silence in dead-end street
Little world round and earth-blue
make a mere eye out of you
house with a door and two slits
a garden where everything fits
Small arrow feathered into space
love fades away from its place
Carpenter seals a coffin that’s bought
I ready myself for the nought
Small grain of sand is my word, my breath
small grain of nought is my death

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