Category: poems

If

f you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!


via Tim Ferris’ 5-bullet Friday

Don’t

Don’t tell me
about your unrequited love
the one you’ve been pining for
I’ve heard that shit before.

Spare me your tales of childhood rape
father’s rage
mother’s fear
as if you were
the only one who suffers
I don’t care
about
your existential tragedies

Come to me naked or avoid me altogether:
Leave your facades for those who think in words.
Show me the silence
behind
your mouth and body language

We are in a room
too small for movement
Dance me with your stillness
or shut up

Weather

These days,
Under-the-weather
is the new normal.

Yes, I get out of bed
But only for very good reasons:
Peeing, pooing, but not farting.

Brush my teeth twice a day.
Make that twice in a row,
every other day.

Showering is
for special occasions only
Birthdays, anniversaries,

Christmas, but not New Year
Because there’s nothing New
about the New Year.

It’s the same uninvited guest
with a plus one this time
A re-run of last.

Same resolution to
lose the same five pounds
Run the same 10k, only slower.

The same year,
But for a hotter summer,
a colder winter.

We Should Be Prepared

The way the plovers cry goodbye.
The way the dead fox keeps on looking down the hill with open eye.
The way the leaves fall, and then there’s the long wait.
The way someone says we must never meet again.
The way mold spots the cake,
The way sourness overtakes the cream.
The way the river water rushes by, never to return.
The way the days go by, never to return.
The way somebody comes back, but only in a dream.

Mary Oliver died today.

Work, Sometimes

I was sad all day, and why not.  There I was, books piled
on both sides of the table, paper stacked up, words
falling off my tongue.

The robins had been a long time singing, and now it
was beginning to rain.

What are we sure of?  Happiness isn’t a town on a map,
or an early arrival, or a job well done, but good work
ongoing.  Which is not likely to be the trifling around
with a poem.

Then it began raining hard, and the flowers in the yard
were full of lively fragrance.

You have had days like this, no doubt.  And wasn’t it
wonderful, finally, to leave the room?  Ah, what a
moment!

As for myself, I swung the door open.  And there was
the wordless, singing world.  And I ran for my life.