Sonnet- To Emily Dickinson
A spinster, she remained all through her life,
And kept her poems unpublished but filed;
God was her Lover, Friend, ’midst all her strife;
She led a quiet life akin a child!
Her feelings river-like flowed to the sea;
She never let her passions form a lake;
Neither was she after name, fame, money;
She was a Poetess of U.S. make.
The Queen of wordy rhymes, she wrote and wrote;
Her poems could apply to future dates;
A Ship she was but wished to stay a boat!
On earth, she was ready for Heaven's gates.
Her volume of poetry was quite big!
Nevertheless, she never wore a wig!
7-4-2002
poem by John Celes

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The Poet Prince
By day he wore a royal crown.
By night we wrote his poems down.
He wrote of justice, love and peace,
A future time when wars would cease.
Through vision, dream and prophecy
He wrote of wonders yet to be.
In time, his poems filled his room:
The left side joy, the right side gloom.
For life is both the sweet and sour,
And weakness till the time of power.
A prince must think such matters through,
To seek a sovereign point of view.
And so, while lesser mortals slept,
The prince, through poems, wisdom kept.
By day, by night he persevered
With revelations that appeared.
God said, 'Forget your crown of gold.
The world is ready to be told.'
The prince removed his crown that day
And as God's servant walked away...
poem by Denis Martindale

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Let Me Publish Our Love
Poets wrote love poems,
Which were love letters,
To their lofty queens;
Save queens, all have read.
I wrote love letters
In the form of poems
To my hefty queen;
Save others, she’s read.
Love has no charm when
The queen alone knows,
Also when others
Know but not the queen.
She must know my love;
My friends must know it.
Let me publish those
That I wrote of her.
(02.06.2011)
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar

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I Wrote My Poems Today
I WROTE MY POEMS TODAY
I wrote my poems today-
I should rest
But unrest is in me
And perhaps only Poetry
Will make me calm.
It is after all easier
To live with the error
in one small poem
Easier to discard it
Than in trying to confront and correct
A long work of the past.
With a few lines
I escape and pretend
I am doing something worthwhile-
So if my poetry is a poetry of confession
Today it is perhaps a confession
of my cowardice and irresponsibility.
poem by Shalom Freedman

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Was It You Who Wrote Some Poems?
it happens in a crowd
or a party or a reunion
to be exact and short of
any dialogue
you ask,
was it you
who wrote some
poems?
and i say
yes
and i ask why?
and you say
oh i like every poem
there
and i ask
which ones?
the one about love
or passion
or compassion
or was it the poem
that hurts
and makes
one feel the
urge to kill oneself?
and you say
i like the
sad ones
those that
make me cry
and think
of my broken heart
and i say
i never wrote
sad poems
and you say
you swear
i have read
the sad ones
and i really cried
alone
and i say,
i never wrote
them
they write themselves
and i do not really cry anymore
and you say
really?
and i say: i am numb.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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We Need Poems To Make Us Love Life More
WE NEED POEMS TO MAKE US LOVE LIFE MORE
We need poems to make us love life more
Poems that will make us happier
Poems that will make us kinder, better people.
We need poems that will inspire us
That will add to our sense of the world’s Beauty
We need Poems that will make us love others as we love ourselves as we love God.
We need holy poems
And joyful poems
And blessed poems
And kind poems
We need poems which will make us love life more
Which will help us love others and ourselves more
God more
We need poems.
poem by Shalom Freedman

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The Poems Became The Story Of My Inner Life
THE POEMS BECAME THE STORY OF MY INNER LIFE
The poems became the story of my inner life-
A series of confessions-
Often simple and direct
They seemed to lose their poetry-
I wrote them and I write them as I need to
I do not know if their rhythm is real
Or only prose-
I write them as poetry
Because this is what I am and have now-
Still the overwhelming anxiety I have now suggests
I always in them tell only a small part of the story
As if the feeling inside
Is always more than any poetry that pretends to express and represent it –
If I doubt the value of this poem and doubt the value of all my poetry and doubt my own value, poetry or not, and doubt and doubt-
Then certainly ‘doubt’ is one keynote of my inner life and story.
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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Sonnet: A Good Poem
My Muse does not me bring riches, I seek;
A life of poverty with it comes meek;
I struggled with Poetry and my Rhymes,
Regardless of night/ day or other climes.
My inspirations most come from above;
These are the best poems and which I love;
These are the ones too, I don’t alter much;
For centuries, they can well stand as such.
I make some poems of my own design;
They aren’t the best always; so, I resign;
Whatever poem’s made, I shouldn’t alter,
Nor do I ever for money, barter.
All good poems that stand the test of time
Are inspired and perspired to rhyme.
poem by John Celes

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It Is A Habit
writing poems
when you really write poems
everyday and every moment of your life
even when you're in the middle of your
bread and butter eating thing
or even when you are defecating
writing poems becomes a habit
even when you sleep even when you dream
writing poems becomes a part of your system
you eat poetry you vomit poetry
you digest poetry you poo poetry
you breathe poetry you sweat poetry
you love poetry and you live with your poetry
and at the end you die with poetry
and your epitaph says: here lies the poet,
choked with poetry.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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If I were a bard
If I were a young Bard.
I wrote my first poem when I was about 13.I was taking a short cut home
when I saw a woman washing her herself by the fire place, few people in
those days had a bathroom. I was so enthralled by this that I wrote a poem.
My older brother found it, gave my ode to my mother, who said I was a pig.
This shocked me so much that I never wrote another poem before I was fifty
one. But all the poems I didn’t write came tumbling out it was like they had
been filed in my head waiting for me to pick up a pen. This particular well is
empty, the poems I write now are contemporary. I have a collection of
verses, edited by a friend of mine “The Tasmanian Tiger” when settlers came
to Tasmania they eradicated that animal, it will never come back and that
saddens me deeply. In Norway we very nearly killed off the wolf, my inner
ear can hear them, in a snowbound dale them when the moon is full and
I too can howl to a mythical past; a longing for harmony in a cruel world.
poem by Oskar Hansen

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Poems About Poems About Poems
Poems about poems about poems-
More poems and more poems and more poems-
Poems poems poems poems poems-
How many poems?
How much poetry
Until there is no poetry at all?
But only 'words' and 'words' and 'words'
Until one goes far away
Where there was never a poem before-
And suddenly hears
“Let there be Light”.
And Poetry perhaps
Is born again.
poem by Shalom Freedman

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431 To A Friend Who Died As Poet
I Have Seen The Power Of Your Poems
Those That
Make The Blind See
The Mute Finally Speaking About Beauty
The Deaf Hearing The Songs Of Love
And The Crippled Finally Dancing To The
Rhythm Of Your
Lines
I Am Amazed And So Convinced
About The Magic Of The Poems That You Wrote
When You Were Once Alive
Before They Buried You On A Shallow Grave
With Their Anger
And Hatred
They Were Not Able To Cut
Your Tongue And Tear Your Mouth
And Break The Bones
Of The Body Of
Your Poetry
Now Let Me Ask You
If These Poems Come From
The Deepest Chamber Of Your Heart
Are Its Roots Your Pains And Unfathomable Sorrows
Or Is It Grown From The Seeds Of
Your Bliss
That When Summer Comes They Bloom Into
Sunflowers?
I See You In Your Images Smiling
And I Can Hear That Suppressed Laughter
On The Lake On A Clear Morning
What Is This All About My Friend?
Tell Me, For They Do Not Like
My Sadness Neither Do They Share
My Joys And Happiness
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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Because She Allowed It She Was Destroyed
one summer she attended a poetry workshop
upon invitation of some writers
and wannabes like her
her name is poetess
modest
shy
truthtful to every word chosen by her
in the poem that she chooses to
read before them
these writers listening to her
after which
the chopping begins, the stabbing knife, the slices of her self
the sharp teeth biting her to pieces
the slapping criticisms of her works
her poems her life
she was bleeding to death
they have no inkling to save her
she shrinks
like some sundried raisin
she shatters like some broken glass
she shuts up
she runs away and throws all her poems to the trash can
she is ugly she is a witch
since then she never wrote again
because of them
these writers ahead of her
she was the object of their ridicule
she was utterly destroyed
because she allowed it
she had known better
that one should write
because one must write
not for anybody else
but for oneself alone
one need not even win
or excel
one only needs to write
because you love to write
because you must
survive this love of your life
your poetry, now.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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I Hid Nothing From My Poetry
I HID NOTHING FROM MY POETRY
I hid nothing from my poetry-
I gave it all I had
My deepest feeling of my own life-
I wrote as if telling it to God -
But who needs these feelings?
And is it really poetry?
All my weaknesses and doubts and hesitations and fears
I wrote and write-
My poetry is my signature and says who I am
What it is others must feel and judge-
May God forgive me for my hubris and ambition
Even in writing this.
poem by Shalom Freedman

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To A Friend Who Died As A Poet
i have seen the power of your poems
those that
make the blind see
the mute finally speaking about beauty
the deaf hearing the songs of love
and the crippled finally dancing to the
rhythm of your
lines
i am amazed and so convinced
about the magic of the poems that you wrote
when you were once alive
before they buried you on a shallow grave
with their anger
and hatred
they were not able to cut your tongue and tear your mouth
and break the bones
of the body of
your poetry
now let me ask you
if these poems come from the deepest chamber of your heart
are its roots your pains and unfathomable sorrows
or is it grown from the seeds of
your bliss
that when summer comes they bloom into
sunflowers?
i see you in your images smiling and i can hear that suppressed laughter
on the lake on a clear morning
what is this all about my friend?
tell me,
for they do not like
my sadness
neither do they share
my joys and
happiness
for what i write is nothing
but air.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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I Wrote My Last Romantic Love Poem A Long Time Ago
I wrote my last romantic love poem a long time ago-
Now I write quieter poems
Poems of the pleasure of the old-
A walk in the morning
A sudden turn of sunlight on a cold cold day
A small kindness I may do
Or someone may do for me
Poems of love for my family
And of sadness at the sickness of my friends
Quiet poems
That do not know the wildness of passion
The bitterness of love disappointed
The up and down motions
Of when she does and when she doesn’t
And all her yeses and nos-
I write quiet poems
And I live happily in them
And I sometimes think with sadness
Of the great passion there was once-
But I am old now
And happy and quiet in small things
Grandchildren, among the best of them.
poem by Shalom Freedman

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Lost Poems
When I was a child about the age of 5,
I wrote a ton of poems late at night,
I gave them to my school teacher
who thought they were great,
but I never did see them again to this date.
My mom tells me I became despairingly mad,
then I became really sad,
which then made me cry and cry,
so to make up for lost time,
and also before I lose my mind,
I write Purple Poems that really do rhyme.
That my friend is what you will find,
when reading Purple Poems from Christina Sunrise.
Written by Christina Sunrise on Feb.6,2011
poem by Christina Sunrise

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(V – 2010) To Risha Ahmed
(With Love, Admiration and Best Wishes)
Of Poetry, O Prodigy!
You pen with wit and sanity
Your vision shows maturity
Your diction forces clarity!
Of Poetry, O Prodigy!
Your rhythm rides melodiously
You rhyme with ease and quality
Your hallmark is spontaneity!
Of Poetry, O Prodigy!
Your poems voice vocal beauty
Your poems value buoyancy
Your poems come creatively!
Of Poetry, O Prodigy!
You need now learn no prosody
You embody true poetry
Your poetry is really free!
Of Poetry, O Prodigy!
Your rhymes & themes with time vary
You proceed but with modesty
Your future you can guarantee!
Of Poetry, O Prodigy!
Your age will grow your ability
Your heart will light your journey, see
Your writings light humanity!
In The Manner Of Borges I Write Poems In My Old Age
IN THE MANNER OF BORGES I WRITE POEMS IN MY OLD AGE
In the manner of Borges I write poems in my old age
And dream that they are not only imitations
Of poems written by others
When we all were young.
Instead I go on now in the darkness of the night
Because the fear of what will be
Is always so deep in me
It does not need Poetry or Happiness or any other Meaning
Outside itself.
We are small sands drifting on the edge of stars
Lesser beings of a time we will never know
All that we have done comes back to us over and over again
As if we never were
I don’t believe I will ever write Borges lines
He wrote them in his own imagined words
And I must in my own little life
Suffer to the end of time
All I have not been
And never will be.
God Who is Good
God of Love
You gave me so much
You did not have to give me Poetry also.
poem by Shalom Freedman

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George Crabbe Wrote Of
George Crabbe wrote of hardship and poverty and woe
In the England he lived in a long time ago
But perhaps his poems might be more popular today
Had he looked at life in a less truthful way.
George Crabbe wrote of children in dire poverty
The poor sad victims of Human cruelty
And the poems full of pathos and the poems full of truth
Of a poet who was blessed with the great gift of ruth.
He wrote of human cruelty to their own kind
A God in the soul of such a person you'll find
He did not write of mythological figures or monarch or squire
He wrote for the poor his type I do admire.
Of the poverty around him he was all too aware
But poets like George Crabbe they have always been rare
Though if you feel a bit down and a good laugh you do need
His poems lacking in Humor are not for you to read.
Of the poor souls of England George Crabbe did write
His poems not hard to understand or to read or recite
And though as a person and poet he was great
Such poets the masses never do celebrate.
poem by Francis Duggan

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