Only truthful hands write true poems. I cannot see any basic difference between a handshake and a poem.
quote by Paul Celan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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So Many People Have No Poem
SO MANY PEOPLE HAVE NO POEM
So many people have no poem.
No one writes of them and for them,
And perhaps it is not important to most of them.
But for the few who need and want a poem
And cannot write a poem of their own
Shouldn’t there be someone to write for them?
I have tried to write for a few
But not that well either.
Who will write for them?
Who will listen for them?
God Maker of all Poems and Silences,
You Alone can save us,
The makers of poems
And those who are only listeners.
God You Alone-Write their names for them.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Few Poems Are Remembered
FEW POEMS ARE REMEMBERED
Few poems are remembered -
Few poems are ever really known-
Few poems are chosen -
Few poems make us want to return to them again and again-
Out of thousands written every day
Perhaps one poem in a decade
Perhaps less.
This is not the poem.
One can write a lifetime
Without ever writing one such poem.
Most of us never write the poem
And most of us are not remembered either.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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All I Can Do Now Is Write Another Poem
All I can do now is write another poem-
The poems are small,
And do not require the long hours and long years
Of the books-
Like the world as a whole
I seem to have a shorter attention span
And less patience-
A poem can be written and given a name
In minutes not years-
Though some would say a great poem
Takes the travail of years of waiting
And years of work-
But I did not say
‘All I can do now is write another great poem'
Perhaps I have in all the years of the nights never written one-
I can write the poems I write
My kinds of poems
In a fairly short time-
All I can do now
Is write another of my kind of poems-
Whether they be worth anything,
Or not.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Poem Of All The Places I Have Never Been
THE POEM OF ALL THE PLACES I HAVE NEVER BEEN
The poem of all the places I have never been
The poem of all the dreams I have not seen
The poem of others poems written in lines I have never imagined
The poem of the infinite – what-is- not and ‘what- will- never- be
The poem of seas and suns and sounds and Shakespeare’s sonnets,
The poem of words and only words whose sounds do not mean what we feel
The poem of all I would not and cannot write
The poem that is not and never will be in me
The poem I do not write
The poem I am not
The poem lost
The poem which itself is not a poem
The poem of the last contradiction and the first
The poem beyond the poem hidden within the poem
The poem which will never be a poem
The poem which is not
The poem I cannot dream.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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There Is No Poem For Me Today
THERE IS NO POEM FOR ME TODAY
There is no poem for me today
There is no poem of yesterday
The poems have gone
And far away
There is no poem
For another day.
There never will be another poem
Poems are gone
Poems are stone.
All the words I will ever write
Are not enough
For a Poem of Life.
The Poems are not
They will never be
I am not a Poem
Nor Poetry.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Fictional
everything i write comes back to me
like they are real
in flesh and blood and friends write
how come
how is it that we are there in your poems
when they are supposedly
some works of a writer
imaginary and fictional
i have no answer
i write about love and broken hearts
and another friend
emails if i am alright
is there anything she can do to help?
but i say again
this is not me this has nothing to do with me
this is fiction
and she does not believe me
she says,
there you are trying to lie again
when blood runs surging like some pulse
of a dying man wanting to be alive
in your poetry,
i have no answer
the poems are works of fiction
it is not me it is about him and her and them
she shrugs off her shoulders
and reads again about the old church where
she once knelt and prayed
there was this girl who fell in love
and whose heart was
beautifully torn to pieces
she says she is her
the poem is true
and there was this boy
who was with her praying
who, when he became a man
broke her heart
she says it is you it is you
the poem is true,
the poems are true
who will ever believe me now?
i have always lied all along
count it from the first poem
when i said about
it and i said it was
it is
all about nothing and
it will always be about nothing
but fiction, nothing personal, but it can be also painful and lingering.....
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Poem Of Shabbat Morning Is Gone
THE POEM OF SHABBAT MORNING IS GONE
The poem of Shabbat morning is gone-
Forgotten forever
As if it never was.
It came to me
And I could not write it down
And now it is gone.
The world is filled with poems which are lost
And never written down
Great works and great mysteries
Never to really be.
In all those billions of unrecorded lives
That went before us on this earth
There were many many poems lost.
I write this down now
as compensation-
How many poorer poems
have replaced
the true poems
that were once
and never are to be?
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The History Poems Have Not Been Written
The history poems have not been written
The poems after Milosz
The Wallace Stevens poems will never be written
I can’t come close
I have tried the Blake poems
But of course I am not near them either
I would like to the ironic intellectual poems
I might be able to do them
I could do a kind of surrealistic association mind poem a prose poem
But I don’t like that very much
The poems of Jerusalem have not been good enough
Poems of propaganda are awkward and unacceptable
The small poems that tell of my life
They are for me the chance at real poetry
And I will continue as best I can with them
The American poems I have not yet found the idiom for
I can be epigrammatic in Emerson Thoreau fashion
But not with the hard New England observing eye
Borges poems I love
And the stories of mind and literature
Making the drama of a life of a storyteller
Interest me
But I doubt I could truly do them well
Imitation can only take one so far
And through it one may lose one’s way entirely
I can really do only what I am
Not the Dickinson poems nor the Hopkins poems nor the Wordsworth poems nor the Keats poems nor the Amichai poems nor the poems of many others whose poetry I love
The Biblical poems have been tried
The poems of cosmic and scientific reflection
I could try to improve them
There are too many different kinds of poems to write
And I cannot write almost all of them
This is another poem about poems and poetry
I have written many for a long time now
Perhaps I need to go elsewhere and write in a new way
A way I have not dreamed or even remotely understood possible before.
The poems of the unknown poetry await me
I will go on but I am not sure now I know in which wa
poem by Shalom Freedman
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If Only I Could Write A Beautiful Poem
If only I could write a beautiful love poem
I would write it special and only to you
If only I could write a beautiful love poem
So that we will forever remain so very very true
If only I could write a beautiful love poem
With more than a goodness like something new
If only I could write a beautiful love poem
Like the everlasting stay of the sky so blue
If only I could write a beautiful love poem
I would pray to God
If only I could write a beautiful love poem
I would work very hard for the Lord
If only I could write a beautiful love poem
With happiness the remain all through the year
f only I could write a beautiful love poem
Knowing that you will be very near
If only I could write a beautiful love poem
One so very very true
If only I could write a beautiful love poem
I would write it just for you
poem by Douglas Carter
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Poems Poems
poems poems every where does any one care
poems are your life but do you include them
poems may seem silly but there a great part of life
so say a poem write a poem listen to a poem be the poem
poem by Samantha Thuringer
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Poem I Wrote Yesterday/ The Poem I Write Today
THE POEM I WROTE YESTERDAY/THE POEM I WRITE TODAY
The poem I wrote yesterday
The poem I write today
The poem I will write tomorrow
What do they all mean?
Life goes on
Even my life will go on for a time
Without them.
True they give me hope now
But hope is another kind of delusion-
Creature of hopes and dreams delusions and poems
I go on now writing another poem hoping that you somewhere
Will want to know and read and remember it.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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I Wanted To Write The Poems Of The Stars
I WANTED TO WRITE THE POEMS OF THE STARS
I wanted to write the poems of the stars
The poem of Beauty and Hope and Inspiration
I wanted to write a poem that helped others
Find Joy and Meaning in their lives -
I write my little poems
Often they are the sad truths of my own little life
Consolations for myself
I think may perhaps echo the souls of others.
I am not what I would have been
And perhaps not what I should be
I am what I am
What G-d has given me to be -
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Every Poem I Write Calls To Another Poem
EVERY POEM I WRITE CALLS TO ANOTHER POEM
Every poem I write calls to another poem
I mostly do not write -
And all the poems I do not write
Appear sometime later
In poems I try to write later-
And nothing I do is not connected
To something else I do or do not do
As this poem too is connected with a trip to the stars
No human being will ever take.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Only Poem at the End of the Universe
The only poem at the end of the universe
That will be heard is God’s Poem.
Why then write and write
What will in the end be forever unheard?
We are here now
And we write poems now
Because writing poems
Is what we can do.
Beyond this
‘The lone and level sands stretch far away’.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Scribbler's Stymie
Pen and paper in sight
I've got no poem to write
Staying up all night
I've got no poem to write
Although my mind is bright
I've got no poem to write
It's windy out tonight, should I go fly a kite?
I've got no poem to write
My ceiling, it is white
I've got no poem to write
It's 4: 59! Five, but not quite
I've got no poem to write
In your arms I'd feel so light
I've got no poem to write
I've had no sleep tonight
I've got no poem to write
Will you just hold me tight?
I've got no poem to write
Outside it's almost light
I've got no poem to write
It's late, off goes my light
I've got no poem to write
poem by Julia Grace
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Poem Started To Be One Thing
The Poem started to be one thing
And became another -
It lost its way
And became mixed up-
To save it was to divide into two or three
But this was to lose it also-
Perhaps the mixed- up poem is the true poem
And the poem pure in one theme is only an abstraction no one needs -
The poem whose subject is its own writing
Is a minor poem
And one of lesser feeling-
I write this poem now as if I know
Even within myself
There are better, if less or more pure poems elsewhere
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Why Should I Have A Poem?
WHY SHOULD I HAVE A POEM?
Why should I have a poem?
Who am I to have a poem?
Who is anyone to have a poem?
But then again
Aren’t we all poems?
Many poems
And each one of us many voices
And who knows how deep feelings
We ourselves cannot understand
And lingerings of beauty
We can ourselves barely decipher?
Who knows what a poem is
And what life means
And why we write and read
And what words move us
In the middle of the night
Or at the end of the day
When even our dreams are asleep?
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A Not a Poem Poem
A Not a Poem Poem
I will not write a poem
For I am not a poet
I cannot makes things rhyme
I’ve tried for quite some time
So will I write a poem?
NO!
I can’t write poetry
I’ve tried to all my life
Once, I tried to write a poem
About a husband and his wife
It sounded really silly
So I crumbled it up into a ball
That’s why I decided
That I couldn’t write poetry at all
Am I gonna write a poem?
NO!
Well, I’ll try to write a poem
But it will be really bad
It will be absolutely lousy
It will be completely horrible
It won’t be up to snuff
People will say, “Who wrote this stuff? ”
Will my poem be good?
NO!
Can I write a poem?
NO!
Will I write a poem?
NO!
Well, what do you know! ? !
I wrote a poem!
And it’s a pretty good poem, too!
I guess I can write poetry if I try
The next time I’m asked to write a poem,
Will I say no?
NO!
I Did Not Want To Write Poems Of Sadness
I DID NOT WANT TO WRITE POEMS OF SADNESS
I did not want to write poems of sadness
But when sadness takes over one’s life?
The words are what the feelings are
They can try to be better
But ultimately
The true poem is the feelings
And now at this moment
Sadness is the poem
Sadness which waits for the morning light
And prays to God it will be truly ligh
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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All These Poems About Poems
All these poems about poems
Where do they lead?
The world is so rich in so many other things
Write poems about them.
At twilight I look out
At strangers walking
To do their errands of preparation
for Sukkot.
A poem should have some Beauty in it
And not just be an effort at recording observations-
The scarlet bright flowers rage at me from the distance
I cannot translate their Beauty to words -
There is so much I have seen
And so much I will never write –
And so many Poems beyond my Imagination.
All these poems about my failing at poetry
And about translating the Beauty of the world to words-
This is a poem I not know how to properly finish.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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