To sit in silence when we should protest
Makes cowards out of men. The human race
Has climbed on protest. Had no voice been raised
Against injustice, ignorance and lust
The Inquisition yet would serve the law
And guillotines decide our least disputes.
The few who dare must speak and speak again
To right the wrongs of many. Speech, thank God,
No vested power in this great day and land
Can gag or throttle; Press and voice may cry
Loud disapproval of existing ills,
May criticise oppression and condemn
The lawlessness of wealth-protecting laws
That let the children and child-bearers toil
To purchase ease for idle millionaires,
Therefore do I protest against the boast
Of independence in this mighty land.
Call no chain strong which holds one rusted link,
Call no land free that holds one fettered slave
Until the manacled, slim wrists of babes
Are loosed to toss in childish sport and glee,
Until the Mother bears no burden save
The precious one beneath her heart; until
God's soil is rescued from the clutch of greed
And given back to labour, let no man
Call this the Land of Freedom."
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
I must have you!"
Thomas Parke D’Invilliers
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What Teachers Make, or
Objection Overruled, or
If things don't work out, you can always go to law school
He says the problem with teachers is, "What's a kid going to learn
from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?"
He reminds the other dinner guests that it's true what they say about
teachers:
Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.
I decide to bite my tongue instead of his
and resist the temptation to remind the other dinner guests
that it's also true what they say about lawyers.
Because we're eating, after all, and this is polite company.
"I mean, you¹re a teacher, Taylor," he says.
"Be honest. What do you make?"
And I wish he hadn't done that
(asked me to be honest)
because, you see, I have a policy
about honesty and ass-kicking:
if you ask for it, I have to let you have it.
You want to know what I make?
I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.
I can make a C+ feel like a Congressional medal of honor
and an A- feel like a slap in the face.
How dare you waste my time with anything less than your very best.
I make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall
in absolute silence. No, you may not work in groups.
No, you may not ask a question.
Why won't I let you get a drink of water?
Because you're not thirsty, you're bored, that's why.
I make parents tremble in fear when I call home:
I hope I haven't called at a bad time,
I just wanted to talk to you about something Billy said today.
Billy said, "Leave the kid alone. I still cry sometimes, don't you?"
And it was the noblest act of courage I have ever seen.
I make parents see their children for who they are
and what they can be.
You want to know what I make?
I make kids wonder,
I make them question.
I make them criticize.
I make them apologize and mean it.
I make them write, write, write.
And then I make them read.
I make them spell definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful, definitely
beautiful
over and over and over again until they will never misspell
either one of those words again.
I make them show all their work in math.
And hide it on their final drafts in English.
I make them understand that if you got this (brains)
then you follow this (heart) and if someone ever tries to judge you
by what you make, you give them this (the finger).
Let me break it down for you, so you know what I say is true:
I make a goddamn difference! What about you?
He's absolutely amazing, isn't he? I discovered him on TED and I'm so glad I did. It's brilliant seeing him perform (on youtube) as well, because he's just so passionate.
He thought he kept the universe alone;
For all the voice in answer he could wake
Was but the mocking echo of his own
From some tree-hidden cliff across the lake.
Some morning from the boulder-broken beach
He would cry out on life, that what it wants
Is not its own love back in copy speech,
But counter-love, original response.
And nothing ever came of what he cried
Unless it was the embodiment that crashed
In the cliff's talus on the other side,
And then in the far-distant water splashed,
But after a time allowed for it to swim,
Instead of proving human when it neared
And someone else additional to him,
As a great buck it powerfully appeared,
Pushing the crumpled water up ahead,
And landed pouring like a waterfall,
And stumbled through the rocks with horny tread,
And forced the underbrush--and that was all.
jo go look up what Taylor Mali did on def poetry. it does not disappoint
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
I must have you!"
Thomas Parke D’Invilliers
Most poetry puts me off because it's so pretentious, however, this one is really cute. (And it's Neil Gaiman. And I love him. <3)
The Day The Saucers Came - Neil Gaiman
That day, the saucers landed. Hundreds of them, golden,
Silent, coming down from the sky like great snowflakes,
And the people of Earth stood and
stared as they descended,
Waiting, dry-mouthed, to find what waited inside for us
And none of us knowing if we would be here tomorrow
But you didn’t notice it because
That day, the day the saucers came, by some coincidence,
Was the day that the graves gave up their dead
And the zombies pushed up through soft earth
or erupted, shambling and dull-eyed, unstoppable,
Came towards us, the living, and we screamed and ran,
But you did not notice this because
On the saucer day, which was the zombie day, it was
Ragnarok also, and the television screens showed us
A ship built of dead-men’s nails, a serpent, a wolf,
All bigger than the mind could hold,
and the cameraman could
Not get far enough away, and then the Gods came out
But you did not see them coming because
On the saucer-zombie-battling-gods
day the floodgates broke
And each of us was engulfed by genies and sprites
Offering us wishes and wonders and eternities
And charm and cleverness and true
brave hearts and pots of gold
While giants feefofummed across
the land, and killer bees,
But you had no idea of any of this because
That day, the saucer day the zombie day
The Ragnarok and fairies day, the
day the great winds came
And snows, and the cities turned to crystal, the day
All plants died, plastics dissolved, the day the
Computers turned, the screens telling
us we would obey, the day
Angels, drunk and muddled, stumbled from the bars,
And all the bells of London were sounded, the day
Animals spoke to us in Assyrian, the Yeti day,
The fluttering capes and arrival of
the Time Machine day,
You didn’t notice any of this because
you were sitting in your room, not doing anything
not ever reading, not really, just
looking at your telephone,
wondering if I was going to call.
Oscar Wilde's The Ballad Of Reading Gaol is my favourite poem (I will only quote a little bit because it's very long):
He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.
He walked amongst the Trial Men
In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.
I also really like Robert Frost's 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.
I gotta admit that Adrienne Rich is by far my favourite poet, i love her stuff, she is so honest with her feelings.
This first one i love for the simple truth that when we enter into a stormy emotional patch, when depression hits we are futile to try and prevent it, all we can do is weather the storm...
The following content has been hidden - Reason : Length (its not actually that long,it just looks better hidden)
Storm Warnings
The glass has been falling all the afternoon,
And knowing better than the instrument
What winds are walking overhead, what zone
Of grey unrest is moving across the land,
I leave the book upon a pillowed chair
And walk from window to closed window, watching
Boughs strain against the sky
And think again, as often when the air
Moves inward toward a silent core of waiting,
How with a single purpose time has traveled
By secret currents of the undiscerned
Into this polar realm. Weather abroad
And weather in the heart alike come on
Regardless of prediction.
Between foreseeing and averting change
Lies all the mastery of elements
Which clocks and weatherglasses cannot alter.
Time in the hand is not control of time,
Nor shattered fragments of an instrument
A proof against the wind; the wind will rise,
We can only close the shutters.
I draw the curtains as the sky goes black
And set a match to candles sheathed in glass
Against the keyhole draught, the insistent whine
Of weather through the unsealed aperture.
This is our sole defense against the season;
These are the things we have learned to do
Who live in troubled regions.
This second one is written about the break up of her marrage and is so utterly honest and layered with symbols and meaning that studying it was one of the best things i have ever done
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Trying to Talk With a Man
Out in this desert we are testing bombs,
that's why we came here.
Sometimes I feel an underground river
forcing its way between deformed cliffs
moving itself like a locus of the sun
into this condemned scenery....
....Coming out to this desert
we meant to change the face of
driving among dull green succulents
walking at noon in the ghost town
surrounded by silence
that sounds like the silence of the place
except that it came with us
and is familiar
and everything we were saying until now
was an effort to blot it out--
coming out here we are up against it
Out here I feel more helpless
with you than without you
You mention the danger
and list the equipment
we talk of caring for each other
in emergencies--lacerations, thirst--
but you look at me like an emergency
Your dry heat feels like power
your eyes are stars of a different magnitude
they reflect lights that spell out: EXIT
when you get up and pace the floor
talking of the danger
as if it were not ourselves
This last one is written after her husband's suicide, i love it because even though she had been suicidal, she is finally finding hope even in the face of the breakup of her marriage and subsequent suicide of her husband. I'm not hiding this one because the hope in it shouldn't be hidden away :)
From a Survivor
The pact that we made was the ordinary pact
of men & women in those days
I don’t know who we thought we were
that our personalities
could resist the failures of the race
Lucky or unlucky, we didn’t know
the race had failures of that order
and that we were going to share them
Like everybody else, we thought of ourselves as special
Your body is as vivid to me
as it ever was: even more
since my feeling for it is clearer:
I know what it could and could not do
it is no longer
the body of a god
or anything with power over my life
Next year it would have been 20 years
and you are wastefully dead
who might have made the leap
we talked, too late, of making
which I live now
not as a leap
but a succession of brief, amazing movements
In an effort to get people to look
into each other's eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.
When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.
Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.
When she doesn't respond,
I know she's used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.
This to me demonstrates exactly what love should be like.
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
I must have you!"
Thomas Parke D’Invilliers
I’m so f--kin’ rich I feel ill,
I got about a hundred mil in “dollar, dollar bills”
I got cream, I got scrill, I got Benjies, I got a hot record deal
I got a house up on the hill - yo, I’m for real!
I got a mansion and a Porsche, and a thorough-bred horse
And my own golf course and … what else… a Bentley, of course
And a Ferrari - naw f--k it, I got a Ferrari dealership
I’m so rich I bought my own jail for fools that steal my sh-t
I’m so paid I’ll buy your father Rolexes, your mom’s diamond necklaces,
And your girl Lexus-es
I’ll buy every female on your mom’s side of the family fake breast-eses
I’ll buy a whole IHOP just to eat two breakfast-ses
I’ll buy a Benz for my girl, Beamers for all my exes-es
And new scooters for all my exes kids - but the truth is. . .
I’m broke.
I got freaks for every hour of every day of the week
I got Motel 6 hoes and dimes that stay in the suite
My bedrooms like a revolving door, revolving whores
A revolving chicken head store - but the truth is. . .
I’m lonely.
I pack the most heat on the block
Got an arsenal with everything from Glocks to Tomahawks
I speak the language “Buyaka!” “Buck! Buck!”
And all that gun jargon and rhetoric
You’re head’ll split open, bullets poking holes in your residence
I don’t know big words, but I know numbers and measurements
Like .45, .22, and 9 millimeter
That’ll leave a crack in your spine ‘bout 9 centimeters - but the truth is. . .
I don’t have a gun.
I don’t love these hoes. I don’t trust these hoes.
I f--k these hoes, I crush these hoes, I lust for these hoes
I’m forever rushing these hoes to let me bust in these hoes
Never buying nothing plush for these hoes
I do enough for these hoes, every chance I get
I go out of my way to call em bitch
And ho, and chicken, slut and trick and ****
Seems to be what the average hip-hop consumer wants - but the truth is. . .
I respect women.
Of all ya’ll hard thugs I’m the hardest
Leave your ass dearly departed, or severely retarded
I’ll kill your wife, I’ll kill your dog, I’ll kill your turtle
I’ll kill your kids, I’ll kill your kids’ future kids
Then spit some cliché bullsh-t like: “That’s just how it is…”
I’m hard - hard as the eyes of killer, hard as the hands of a slave,
I’ve never known love, and never been afraid,
I’m hard as a body that’s dead, hard as a convicts bed,
Hard as my d--k when I’m getting head - but the truth is. . .
I’m scared…
(I’m scared.)
See, the emcee is the one who’ll whisper the truth.
The rapper is the one who’ll holla the lies.
So don’t act surprised at what your daughter knows when she’s five
Just blame it on the bullsh-t that you buy - look what you’ve done… I’m a rapper.
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
I must have you!"
Thomas Parke D’Invilliers
No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine; Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kissed By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine; Make not your rosary of yew-berries, Nor let the beetle nor the death-moth be Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl A partner in your sorrow's mysteries; For shade to shade will come too drowsily, And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.
But when the melancholy fit shall fall Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, That fosters the droop-headed flowers all, And hides the green hill in an April shroud; Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave, Or on the wealth of globed peonies; Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows, Imprison her soft hand, and let her rave, And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.
She dwells with Beauty -Beauty that must die; And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips: Ay, in the very temple of Delight Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine, Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine: His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung
Or perhaps When You Are Old by Yeats:
WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled And paced among the mountains overhead And hid his face among a crowd of stars.
Last edited by Coffeemate : 22-09-2010 at 11:39 AM.
Reason: Sorting out spacing
I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.
A bit morbid - but a damn good poem:) I studied it in English class last year and it made me cry:(
There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: 'This glass is half full'. And then there are those who say: 'This glass is half empty'.
The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: 'What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qXgPfMGG8E&feature=player_embedded"]YouTube - "I'll Fight You For The Library" performed by Taylor Mali[/ame]
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
I must have you!"
Thomas Parke D’Invilliers
My father worked with a horse-plough,
His shoulders globed like a full sail strung
Between the shafts and the furrow.
The horse strained at his clicking tongue.
An expert. He would set the wing
And fit the bright steel-pointed sock.
The sod rolled over without breaking.
At the headrig, with a single pluck
Of reins, the sweating team turned round
And back into the land. His eye
Narrowed and angled at the ground,
Mapping the furrow exactly.
I stumbled in his hob-nailed wake,
Fell sometimes on the polished sod;
Sometimes he rode me on his back
Dipping and rising to his plod.
I wanted to grow up and plough,
To close one eye, stiffen my arm.
All I ever did was follow
In his broad shadow round the farm.
I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,
Yapping always. But today
It is my father who keeps stumbling
Behind me, and will not go away.
There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: 'This glass is half full'. And then there are those who say: 'This glass is half empty'.
The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: 'What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!
We walk to the ward from the badly parked car
with your grandma taking four short steps to our two.
We have brought her here to die and we know it.
You check her towel. soap and family trinkets,
pare her nails, parcel her in the rough blankets
and she sinks down into her incontinence.
It is time John. In their pasty bloodless smiles,
in their slack breasts, their stunned brains and their baldness
and in us John: we are almost these monsters.
You're shattered. You give me the keys and I drive
through the twilight zone, past the famous station
to your house, to numb ourselves with alcohol.
Inside, we feel the terror of the dusk begin.
Outside we watch the evening, failing again,
and we let it happen. We can say nothing.
Sometimes the sun spangles and we feel alive.
One thing we have to get, John, out of this life.
There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: 'This glass is half full'. And then there are those who say: 'This glass is half empty'.
The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: 'What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!
