
Psychographs
Says Gerald Massey: 'When I write, a band
Of souls of the departed guides my hand.'
How strange that poems cumbering our shelves,
Penned by immortal parts, have none themselves
poem by Ambrose Bierce

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Related quotes
There's no dearth of kindness In the world of ours; Only in our blindness We gather thorns for flowers.
quote by Gerald Massey

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Not by appointment do we meet delight Or joy; they heed not our expectancy; But round some corner of the streets of life they of a sudden greet us with a smile.
quote by Gerald Massey

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The Hand Wielding the Pen and Gun
I write poems by this hand
which helped my mother
to crush the grains in a stone mortar
by raising and hitting down with the pestle
before the grinding mills came to a nearby town.
I write poems by this hand
which got wounds swinging the hammer
to hit hard on rods to make holes into the rock
in our deep well, and filled them, with explosives
to blow off and find the burst of water.
I write poems by this hand
which drove the bulls cracking the whip
while ploughing and moving the cart
and drawing water from the well in leather sacks,
before the electrons flew through the wires to my village.
I write poems by this hand
which uprooted for wages the groundnut plants
beside the ghats from morn till dark on school holidays,
when the lack of rains shrivelled
our crops at our village.
I write poems by this hand
which made the eyes of professors wet
by scribbling short stories in my classical tongue.
I write poems by this hand
which quenched my thirst and of the kin
fetching waters from the falls in the hills
where herbs with healing powers grow.
I write poems by this hand
which feels restless to wield the gun
on seeing the coffins of our soldiers
taken to the graveyard in silence `
overwhelming with rage and fire.
---------
poem by Rajendran Muthiah

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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

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Poems About.
There are poems that you will never see
Marked in a folder titled 'privacy'
Poems of hate and anger and personal pain
Poems about greed and hunger and personal gain
Poems about people I would love to see dead
Poems about women I met
Poems about relationships that have gone bad
Poems about issues with mom and dad
Poems about me, the person no one knows
Poems about places where only my soul goes
Poems I wish I could place in the clouds for all to read
Poems about lust, selfishness and greed
Poems I know will hurt those I hate
Poems I write by complete mistake
Poems I have hidden in my heart and my head
Poems about things that are better left unsaid
Poems I want to share and poems I want to retract
Poems of shame and how others might act
They stay in my psyche, they are a part of me
These poems I write, but you will never see.
poem by Mahfooz Ali

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Into how many parts would you divide the child after Divorce?
You might legally divide each other from the bonds of immortal marriage; but into how many insane parts would you divide your new-born child’s eternal happiness; after your treacherously vindictive divorce?
You might legally divide each other from the bonds of immortal marriage; but into how many heartless parts would you divide your new-born child’s invincible freedom; after your venomously unbearable divorce?
You might legally divide each other from the bonds of immortal marriage; but into how many ribald parts would you divide your new-born child’s unsurpassable creativity; after your lethally unceremonious divorce?
You might legally divide each other from the bonds of immortal marriage; but into how many salacious parts would you divide your new-born child’s majestic destiny; after your lecherously ignominious divorce?
You might legally divide each other from the bonds of immortal marriage; but into how many emotionless parts would you divide your new-born child’s triumphant spirit; after your contemptuously debasing divorce?
You might legally divide each other from the bonds of immortal marriage; but into how many terrorizing parts would you divide your new-born child’s unbridled fantasies; after your abhorrently cadaverous divorce?
You might legally divide each other from the bonds of immortal marriage; but into how many excruciating parts would you divide your new-born child’s humanitarian blood; after your cold-bloodedly cannibalistic divorce?
You might legally divide each other from the bonds of immortal marriage; but into how many tyrannized parts would you divide your new-born child’s unconquerable artistry; after your violently besmirching divorce?
You might legally divide each other from the bonds of immortal marriage; but into how many reproachful parts would you divide your new-born child’s redolent playfulness; after your despicably devastating divorce?
You might legally divide each other from the bonds of immortal marriage; but into how many sacrilegious parts would you divide your new-born child’s impregnable mischief; after your sadistically bemoaning divorce?
You might legally divide each other from the bonds of immortal marriage; but into how many wanton parts would you divide your new-born child’s impeccable integrity; after your hedonistically carnivorous divorce?
You might legally divide each other from the bonds of immortal marriage; but into how many ghoulish parts would you divide your new-born child’s limitless fertility; after your mindlessly malicious divorce?
You might legally divide each other from the bonds of immortal marriage; but into how many diabolical parts would you divide your new- born child’s infallible innocence; after your unforgivably truculent divorce?
You might legally divide each other from the bonds of immortal marriage; but into how many vengeful parts would you divide your new-born child’s uninhibited cries; after your preposterously bigoted divorce?
You might legally divide each other from the bonds of immortal marriage; but into how many criminal parts would you divide your new-born child’s princely silkenness; after your tempestuously confounding divorce?
You might legally divide each other from the bonds of immortal marriage; but into how many satanic parts would you divide your new-born child’s tiny brain; after your barbarously ungainly divorce?
You might legally divide each other from the bonds of immortal marriage; but into how many sadistic parts would you divide your new-born child’s unlimited curiosity; after your egregiously dastardly divorce?
You might legally divide each other from the bonds of immortal marriage; but into how many carnivorous parts would you divide your new-born child’s parental longing; after your inanely decrepit divorce?
And you might legally divide each other from the bonds of immortal marriage; but tell me; into how many goddamned parts would you divide your new-born child’s immortal love; after your devilishly vituperative divorce?
©®copyright-2005, by nikhil parekh. all rights reserved.
poem by Nikhil Parekh

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We Need New Poems
WE NEED NEW POEMS
We need new Poems-
So many great Poems
Have already been written.
Perhaps the Greatest poems
Have already been written.
But we need new poems.
We need our Poems
We need the poems only we can write
We need the poems we must write.
We need new poems
My poems
Your poems
Our poems.
We need new poems.
Let us write them.
poem by Shalom Freedman

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The Two Heavens
THERE are two Heavens for natures clear
And calm as thine, my gentle Love!
One Heaven but reflected here;
One Heaven that waits above:
As yonder Lake, in Evening's red,
Lies smiling with the smile of Rest;
One Heaven glowing overhead;
One mirrored in its breast.
poem by Gerald Massey

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I don't
Many people write
For their true emotions to unravel
Out of depression, angst, spite
But I can’t
I don’t write poems when I’m sad
They write from their experiences
When he left me
When they died
Bringing tears, causing cries
But I can’t
I don’t write when I’m sad
The tears dutifully stain my cheek
And roll on and on
Through and through
Down
Down
Down
But I can’t
And I don’t write poems when I’m sad
And all the anger and sadness
Thrust inside of me
Just bursting to get out
Screaming
Pleading
Begging to get out
But they can’t
Because I don’t write poems when I’m sad
And I don’t know what to do
How to express my pain
And woe, and the feeling
It drains me, and it shows
But there’s nothing I can do
Because I don’t ever write poetry when I’m sad
I don't write poems
I don't write poems,
I drink them like wine,
I become tipsy
with each coming line.
I don't write poems,
I breathe them like air,
I become so happy
when each one I share.
I don't write poems,
I live with them;
they prolong my years,
they are as true as I am.
I don't write poems,
I weave into verses
sadness, joy, tears,
prayers, love, curses…
My poems talk and sing,
Sense of living they bring.
©Larisa Rzhepishevska (Odessa, Ukraine)
26th of April,2012
poem by Larisa Rzhepishevska

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My love loss is superior
Loss of love is the cause of poems,
Where loving souls cry out in their pain.
Their women aren’t aware their pain.
I made her know I penned about her.
15.07.2004
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar

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All I Can Do Is Write Poems
ALL I CAN DO IS WRITE POEMS
All I can do is write poems
I have nothing else to say-
Only what Poetry alone can give
The expression of the soul
The deepest feeling we have
Whatever is in us and hurts the most
And needs most to be said.
All I can do in pain is write poems
But when the gladness comes?
When the happiness returns?
I will try too to to find words
For what is unsayable.
poem by Shalom Freedman

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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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Patrick Colum
He penned 'The Old Woman Of The Roads' and 'A Cradle Song'
And to Ireland's best lyricists he surely belong
And his haunting ballad 'She Moved Through The Fair'
With any song ever written is one to compare.
And though to the reaper the poet has long gone
His best poems and lyrics will always live on
He sure was a master of the wordsmith trade
Poets like him are born they cannot be made.
The name of Patrick Colum is a memorable name
Even in his own lifetime he did know great fame
The beauty in his verses is for all to see
A man of great talent who penned great poetry.
Many of his poems are good but his best poems are great
And with the best of Eire he is one to rate
And even in death his fan club does grow
Most lovers of poetry a song or poem of Colum's know.
A legend in death and in his own lifetime
Patrick Colum one who penned quite memorable rhyme
His wonderful gift with the World he did share
A poet of the people and his type are rare.
poem by Francis Duggan

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These Little Poems Are All I Can Write Now
THESE LITTLE POEMS ARE ALL I CAN WRITE NOW
These little poems are all I can write now
The rest is gone.
But these poems too question themselves
Doubt their own value and reality.
After such a long road
I am still uncertain.
Nothing I have done
Resonates with recognition of its worth.
Old and alone still
I write on.
Sisyphus had a rock
Which grew so heavy with the years
He could barely begin
To roll it up the hill again.
poem by Shalom Freedman

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No Poem I Write Is Good Enough
NO POEM I WRITE IS GOOD ENOUGH
No poem I write is good enough -
No poem I write is the immortal poem I would write-
And yet I write my imperfect poems
For I do not know how to live without them.
poem by Shalom Freedman

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Poems Are My Life Now
POEMS ARE MY LIFE NOW
Poems are my life now-
I write them as if they are all
I will ever write-
I live in them
I take hope in them-
Small
And yet not delicate
My heart and soul in them
The Poems I write now
Are all I will ever be
In Literature –
Maybe they too are nothing
But they are what I have and am now.
poem by Shalom Freedman

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Souls Of The Departed
On the road to basra stood young lieutenant jimmy bly
Detailed to go through the clothes of the soldiers who died
At night in dreams he sees their souls rise
Like dark geese into the oklahoma skies
Well this is a prayer for the souls of the departed
Those whove gone and left their babies brokenhearted
This is a prayer for the souls of the departed
Now raphael rodriguez was just seven years old
Shot down in a schoolyard by some east compton cholos
His mamma cried my beautiful boy is dead
In the hills the self-made men just sighed and shook their heads
This is a prayer for the souls of the departed
Those whove gone and left their babies brokenhearted
Young lives over before they got started
This is a prayer for the souls of the departed
Tonight as I tuck my own son in bed
All I can think of is what if it wouldve been him instead
I want to build me a wall so high nothing can burn it down
Right here on my own piece of dirty ground
Now I ply my trade in the land of king dollar
Where you get paid and your silence passes as honor
And all the hatred and dirty little lies
Been written off the books and into decent mens eyes
song performed by by Bruce Springsteen

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Postmortem
Most of the poems in praise of mothers
Have been written after the loss of mothers.
Most of poems in glory of love
Have been penned after the love failures.
Such poems have well been appreciated
By those who belong to these categories.
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar

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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

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