Visiting a Dead Man on a Summer Day
In flat America, in Chicago,
Graceland cemetery on the German North Side.
Forty feet of Corinthian candle
celebrate Pullman embedded
lonely raisin in a cake of concrete.
The Potter Palmers float
in an island parthenon.
Barons of hogfat, railroads and wheat
are postmarked with angels and lambs.
But the Getty tomb: white, snow patterned
in a triangle of trees swims dappled with leaf shadow,
sketched light arch within arch
delicate as fingernail moons.
The green doors should not be locked.
Doors of fern and flower should not be shut.
Louis Sullivan, I sit on your grave.
It is not now good weather for prophets.
Sun eddies on the steelsmoke air like sinking honey.
On the inner green door of the Getty tomb
(a thighbone's throw from your stone)
a marvel of growing, blooming, thrusting into seed:
how all living wreathe and insinuate
in the circlet of repetition that never repeats:
ever new birth never rebirth.
Each tide pool microcosm spiraling from your hand.
Sullivan, you had another five years
when your society would give you work.
Thirty years with want crackling in your hands.
Thirty after years with cities
flowering and turning grey in your beard.
All poets are unemployed nowadays.
My country marches in its sleep.
The past structures a heavy mausoleum
hiding its iron frame in masonry.
Men burn like grass
while armies grow.
Thirty years in the vast rumbling gut
of this society you stormed
to be used, screamed
no louder than any other breaking voice.
The waste of a good man
bleeds the future that's come
in Chicago, in flat America,
where the poor still bleed from the teeth,
housed in sewers and filing cabinets,
where prophets may spit into the wind
till anger sleets their eyes shut,
where this house that dances the seasons
and the braid of all living
and the joy of a man making his new good thing
is strange, irrelevant as a meteor,
in Chicago, in flat America
in this year of our burning.
poem by Marge Piercy
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Related quotes
My Next Thirty Years
(track 12 - time 3:37)
(phil vassar)
I think Ill take a moment, celebrate my age
The ending of an era and the turning of a page
Now its time to focus in on where I go from here
Lord have mercy on my next thirty years
Hey my next thirty years Im gonna have some fun
Try to forget about all the crazy things Ive done
Maybe now Ive conquered all my adolescent fears
And Ill do it better in my next thirty years
My next thirty years Im gonna settle all the scores
Cry a little less, laugh a little more
Find a world of happiness without the hate and fear
Figure out just what Im doing here
In my next thirty years
Oh my next thirty years, Im gonna watch my weight
Eat a few more salads and not stay up so late
Drink a little lemonade and not so many beers
Maybe Ill remember my next thirty years
My next thirty years will be the best years of my life
Raise a little family and hang out with my wife
Spend precious moments with the ones that I hold dear
Make up for lost time here, in my next thirty years
In my next thirty years
song performed by by Tim McGraw
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Shaved
He had wore a beard every since his early teens.
It had been at least thirty years since anyone saw him without it.
For those thirty years he felt he had something to hide.
But yesterday he shaved and freed himself from the thirty year mask he had been wearing.
He said it feels good to no longer have that itchy heavy beard weighing him down.
Yesterday he shaved when he finally told everyone he is gay.
Ten Grey hairs and a silver one
I discovered my first grey hair
when I was Seventeen years old
It had to do with broken up my first relationship
I discovered my second grey hair
when I was Twenty years old
It had to do with the quarrels at home
I discovered my third grey hair
when I was Twenty-one years old
It had to do with searching for work
I discovered my fourth grey hair
when I was Twenty-three years old
It had to do with loosing my job
I discovered my fifth grey hair
when I was Twenty-five years old
It had to do with giving up my unborn child
I discovered my sixth grey hair
When I was Twenty-eight years old
It had to do with opening my pub
I discovered my seventh grey hair
When I was thirty years old
It had to do with giving birth to my daughter
I discovered my eight grey hair
When I was thirty –two years old
It had to do with the first day at the kinder garden school
I discovered my ninth grey hair
When I was thirty-four years old
It had to do with to find out that some thing was missing
I discovered my tenth grey hair
When I was thirty-five years old
It had to do with the fights between my sisters and mum
My one Silver hair I discovered lately
Has to do with you
Because I miss you so hard …
poem by Pascale Ost
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Anniversary (November 24)
The treasure of trees
golden mounds
on the green ground.
Urged by the morning sun
yellow leaves
coruscate in chilled air
radiant
with the afterglow of a summer
well lived.
But thirty-two years ago
the light died
when dark death’s hand
seized your struggling heart.
We buried you,
bright treasure,
under still
green grass.
The mud from your grave
clung to our shoes
as we wept our grief
in bright puffs of white breath
ascending like incense
into the good sky.
And thirty-two years later
I still choke on bitter sorrow.
Tears
still sting my eyes.
But looking through the bright window,
I see in November’s gold,
a faint reflection
of the enduring glory
that lights your
endless day.
poem by Steven Federle
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Thirty-nine
O hapless day! O wretched day!
I hoped you'd pass me by--
Alas, the years have sneaked away
And all is changed but I!
Had I the power, I would remand
You to a gloom condign,
But here you've crept upon me and
I--I am thirty-nine!
Now, were I thirty-five, I could
Assume a flippant guise;
Or, were I forty years, I should
Undoubtedly look wise;
For forty years are said to bring
Sedateness superfine;
But thirty-nine don't mean a thing--
À bas with thirty-nine!
You healthy, hulking girls and boys,--
What makes you grow so fast?
Oh, I'll survive your lusty noise--
I'm tough and bound to last!
No, no--I'm old and withered too--
I feel my powers decline
(Yet none believes this can be true
Of one at thirty-nine).
And you, dear girl with velvet eyes,
I wonder what you mean
Through all our keen anxieties
By keeping sweet sixteen.
With your dear love to warm my heart,
Wretch were I to repine;
I was but jesting at the start--
I'm glad I'm thirty-nine!
So, little children, roar and race
As blithely as you can,
And, sweetheart, let your tender grace
Exalt the Day and Man;
For then these factors (I'll engage)
All subtly shall combine
To make both juvenile and sage
The one who's thirty-nine!
Yes, after all, I'm free to say
I would much rather be
Standing as I do stand to-day,
'Twixt devil and deep sea;
For though my face be dark with care
Or with a grimace shine,
Each haply falls unto my share,
For I am thirty-nine!
'Tis passing meet to make good cheer
And lord it like a king,
Since only once we catch the year
That doesn't mean a thing.
O happy day! O gracious day!
I pledge thee in this wine--
Come, let us journey on our way
A year, good Thirty-Nine!
poem by Eugene Field
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Thirty three years
Thirty three years
~
Soon I turn thirty three
And wonder what I have to show
I feel I have achieved very little
And have been going nowhere fast
I fear I am stuck in my ways
And this is my lot for life
I sit alone in writing this morning
With my usual coffee for one
I have loved, had my heart broken
Let opportunities slip away
Now I tend to do nothing
At least I wont feel hurt that way
I have spent time in solitary
And lost touch with the world
Please try and remember that
To excuse my lack of social grace
The pace of each year is picking up
While I am still young in some eyes
Still may yet have a lot to achieve
I look at the past thirty two years
And see myself an old man
Lonely and turning thirty three
poem by Matthew Holloway
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39
I only woke this morning
To find the world is fair—
I’m going on for forty,
With scarcely one grey hair;
I’m going on for forty,
Where man’s strong life begins,
With scarce a sign of crows’ feet,
In spite of all my sins.
Then here’s the living Forties!
The Forties! The Forties!
Then here’s the living Forties!
We’re good for ten years more.
The teens were black and bitter,
A smothered boyhood’s grave—
A farm-drudge in the drought-time,
A weary workshop slave.
But twenty years have laid them,
And all the world is fair—
We’ll find time in the Forties,
To have some boyhood there.
Then here’s the wide, free Forties—
The Forties! The Forties!
Then here’s the wide, free Forties!
We’re good for ten years more!
The twenties they were noble,
The bravest years, I think;
’Twas man to man in trouble,
In working and in drink;
’Twas man to man in fighting,
For money or for praise.
And we’ll find in the Forties
Some more Bohemian days.
Then here’s the wiser Forties!
The Forties! The Forties!
Then here’s the wiser Forties!
We’re good for ten years more.
The thirties were the fate years;
I fought behind the scenes.
The thirties were more cruel
And blacker than the teens;
I held them not but bore them—
They were no years of mine;
But they are going from me,
For I am thirty-nine.
So here’s the stronger Forties!
The Forties! The Forties!
And here’s the good old Forties!
We’re good for ten years more.
poem by Henry Lawson
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America
Walkin' 2 the corner of Main Street, USA
Look at the good people, hear what they gotta say-uh-huh
All right
See a sexy girl with her long black hair
See a preacher man sporting Abercrombie wear-uh-huh
All right
Walk into a corner store
A man says, "This is what I'm fighting for"
[CHORUS]
We are living in America
We're giving in America
We're tripping in America
Everywhere I go, seems like Bush is on TV
We shed blood in the name of liberty-uh-huh
All right
The circus tents are dead, but the sideshow is doing well
The Osbournes and Anna Nicole are too freaky 2 tell-uh-huh
All right
Take the bad with the good
I wanna change it, but I wouldn't leave it if I could
We are trying in America
We're spying in America
Getting high in America
We are laughing in America
We're crying in America
We're dying in America
We are trucking in America
We are f**king in America
We are lucky in America
We are breaking ground in America
Just another town in America
We are breaking down in America
Take the bad with the good
I wanna change it, but I wouldn't leave it if I could
[CHORUS]
We are trying in America
We're spying in America
We're getting high in America
We are getting tan in America
We love Spam in America
Polanski's banned from America
10 million served in America
Have u heard in America?
We're crying in America
We're laughing in America
We're living in America
song performed by by Jewel
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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To Mrs. Thrale on Her Completing Her Thirty-fifth Year
Oft in danger, yet alive,
We are come to thirty-five;
Long may better years arrive,
Better years than thirty-five.
Could philosophers contrive
Life to stop at thirty-five,
Time his hours should never drive
O'er the bounds of thirty-five
High to soar, and deep to dive,
Nature gives at thirty-five.
Ladies, stop and tend your hive,
Trifle not at thirty-five;
For, howe'er we boast and strive,
Life declines from thirty-five:
He that ever hopes to thrive
Must begin by thirty-five:
And all who wisely wish to wive
Must look on Thrale at thirty-five.
poem by Samuel Johnson
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Chicago Sestina
I am surprised by the streets of Chicago
when the palm of winter grips them with snow
as if to forgive the city’s mistakes
and give it a canvas that’s new, white, and clean–
its fingers, the branches on all of the trees
kneading the air that blows in from the lake.
I’ve never lived next to the pulse of the lake
(until I set foot down the side of Chicago)
breathing in through the streets and out through the trees
welcoming the cool of the wet, numbing snow.
It lets my mind slip into thinking it’s clean
as if to personally forgive my mistakes.
“But what have you done to forgive your mistakes? ”
Did I ask this? Or is that the voice of the lake?
Some days, not even does it appear clean,
worn down from its tall standing neighbor, Chicago.
It scrapes at the sky, asking it for more snow
to stick to and freeze the trunks of the trees.
If I were a branch on one of these trees
incapable of making a single mistake,
I’d grab at the sky as it shook out the snow
and grow my roots thick till they tasted the lake.
But I wouldn’t bend to the force of Chicago
that’s constantly keeping me from being clean.
And what does it mean to try to be clean?
I don’t understand the stillness of the trees
when they’re being attacked by the size of Chicago
as if to glorify the city’s mistakes
that glisten like stars at night on the lake
before it all froze and was covered with snow.
Ah! To imagine how long there’s been snow.
How can something this old still feel so clean
and dance through the wind that swoops in from the lake?
Is it the kneading by the spiny branches on trees
trusting that there will be no more mistakes
that leaves these the only pure thing in Chicago?
Here comes the snow that seeks out the trees
Am I now clean? Where are my mistakes?
Chicago belongs where it lay with the lake.
poem by Brian Maloney
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Egrets
Once as I travelled through a quiet evening,
I saw a pool, jet-black and mirror-still.
Beyond, the slender paperbarks stood crowding;
each on its own white image looked its fill,
and nothing moved but thirty egrets wading -
thirty egrets in a quiet evening.
Once in a lifetime, lovely past believing,
your lucky eyes may light on such a pool.
As though for many years I had been waiting,
I watched in silence, till my heart was full
of clear dark water, and white trees unmoving,
and, whiter yet, those thirty egrets wading.
poem by Judith Wright
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Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.
quote by Oscar Wilde
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.
quote by Oscar Wilde
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Few Blocks Away From Thirty-Five
Your name must be Heather?
Because your face,
Seems locked into a jeer.
As if bad weather...
Has left you more than moised.
Your name must be Heather?
You must have been expecting someone,
Dressed in leather?
Or silk...
With a smooth grin.
Your name must be Heather,
The one who claims to have matched my profile...
With an unleashing of my wildest dreams.
But Heather?
You are a few years older than nineteen.
And it has been a long time,
Since I was a rich man at thirty-two!
That was thirty-one years ago, Heather.
And I am sure back then,
You were all of twenty-two.
Your name must be Heather?
Because your face,
Seems locked into a jeer.
As if bad weather...
Has left you more than moised.
You can unthaw in here.
You don't have to look as if you are shocked!
Yes,
You are correct.
This 'is' my natural voice.
And I am a few blocks away from thirty-five.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.
Oscar Wilde in The Importance of Being Earnest
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Visits to St Elizabeths
This is the house of Bedlam.
This is the man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
This is the time
of the tragic man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
This is a wristwatch
telling the time
of the talkative man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
This is a sailor
wearing the watch
that tells the time
of the honored man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
This is the roadstead all of board
reached by the sailor
wearing the watch
that tells the time
of the old, brave man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
These are the years and the walls of the ward,
the winds and clouds of the sea of board
sailed by the sailor
wearing the watch
that tells the time
of the cranky man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
This is a Jew in a newspaper hat
that dances weeping down the ward
over the creaking sea of board
beyond the sailor
winding his watch
that tells the time
of the cruel man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
This is a world of books gone flat.
This is a Jew in a newspaper hat
that dances weeping down the ward
over the creaking sea of board
of the batty sailor
that winds his watch
that tells the time
of the busy man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
This is a boy that pats the floor
to see if the world is there, is flat,
for the widowed Jew in the newspaper hat
that dances weeping down the ward
waltzing the length of a weaving board
by the silent sailor
that hears his watch
that ticks the time
of the tedious man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
These are the years and the walls and the door
that shut on a boy that pats the floor
to feel if the world is there and flat.
This is a Jew in a newspaper hat
that dances joyfully down the ward
into the parting seas of board
past the staring sailor
that shakes his watch
that tells the time
of the poet, the man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
This is the soldier home from the war.
These are the years and the walls and the door
that shut on a boy that pats the floor
to see if the world is round or flat.
This is a Jew in a newspaper hat
that dances carefully down the ward,
walking the plank of a coffin board
with the crazy sailor
that shows his watch
that tells the time
of the wretched man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
poem by Elizabeth Bishop
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In the Valley of Cauteretz
All along the valley, stream that flashest white,
Deepening thy voice with the deepening of the night,
All along the valley, where thy waters flow,
I walk'd with one I loved two and thirty years ago.
All along the valley, while I walk'd to-day,
The two and thirty years were a mist that rolls away;
For all along the valley, down thy rocky bed,
Thy living voice to me was as the voice of the dead,
And all along the valley, by rock and cave and tree,
The voice of the dead was a living voice to me.
poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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America the Beautiful
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassion'd stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness.
America! America!
God mend thine ev'ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.
O beautiful for heroes prov'd
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life.
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
And ev'ry gain divine.
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears.
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.
poem by Katharine Lee Bates (1895)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Take A Good Look At Our Home Land
Oh people of America, people of America
Take a good look at our homeland
Do you really understand
Before you finish reading this poem
Do you have a daughter or son
Young people are leaving their home at an early age
Yet, there is a need for someone to be saved
Take a good look at our homeland
Many people are playing in the same band
Along the eastern coast of our nation
What do you see in the making?
Oh America, America, America
Why not be a complete free nation
Do you see this in the making?
For many years our country has been blessed
Now someone inside is making a big mess
Why pick up guns and fight against each other
Why not love as sisters and brothers
Oh something is going wrong today
People are looking the other way
Our POW'S have been freed
Is there another war in the making like most people believe
At Wounded Knee, S.D. our brothers and sisters
Want a little more freedom
Can you see this in the making?
America, America God shared his grace on thee
Yes he shared his grace for you and me
I want you, you and you
To take a good look at our homeland
When you get back will you take a stand?
Maybe you are thinking about playing in the same band
The only thing i ask you and you to do
Love your sisters and brothers
The way God loves me and you
poem by Leon Thomas Lee
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In The Small Park Aza Rd. Rechavia Thirty- Five Years Later
IN THE SMALL PARK AZA RD. RECHAVIA
Thirty- five years
Have gone by
I was alone then here
My family in America
Lonely and beginning in love.
Here now
In official old age
And not tired
My children far
And worried about-
I do what I did then
Write a small poem
And pretend
I am making my name
An eternity.
The cars go by as they did then
A few cats, one child in the playground
Across from me a flag of Israel on a standard block building
Seen through the yellow- green happy color
Of the morning trees.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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