Related quotes: A MODERNIZED VERSION I DON'T...

The Archbishop And Gil Blas

A MODERNIZED VERSION

I DON'T think I feel much older; I'm aware I'm rather gray,
But so are many young folks; I meet 'em every day.
I confess I 'm more particular in what I eat and drink,
But one's taste improves with culture; that is all it means, I think.

_Can you read as once you used to?_ Well, the printing is so bad,
No young folks' eyes can read it like the books that once we had.
_Are you quite as quick of hearing?_ Please to say that once again.
_Don't I use plain words, your Reverence?_ Yes, I often use a cane,

But it's not because I need it,--no, I always liked a stick;
And as one might lean upon it, 't is as well it should be thick.
Oh, I'm smart, I'm spry, I'm lively,--I can walk, yes, that I can,
On the days I feel like walking, just as well as you, young man!

_Don't you get a little sleepy after dinner every day?_
Well, I doze a little, sometimes, but that always was my way.
_Don't you cry a little easier than some twenty years ago?_
Well, my heart is very tender, but I think 't was always so.

_Don't you find it sometimes happens that you can't recall a name?_
Yes, I know such lots of people,--but my memory 's not to blame.
What! You think my memory's failing! Why, it's just as bright and clear,
I remember my great-grandma! She's been dead these sixty year!

_Is your voice a little trembly?_ Well, it may be, now and then,
But I write as well as ever with a good old-fashioned pen;
It 's the Gillotts make the trouble,--not at all my finger-ends,--
That is why my hand looks shaky when I sign for dividends.

_Don't you stoop a little, walking?_ It 's a way I 've always had,
I have always been round-shouldered, ever since I was a lad.
_Don't you hate to tie your shoe-strings?_ Yes, I own it--that is true.
_Don't you tell old stories over?_ I am not aware I do.

_Don't you stay at home of evenings? Don't you love a cushioned seat_
_In a corner, by the fireside, with your slippers on your feet?_
_Don't you wear warm fleecy flannels? Don't you muffle up your throat_
_Don't you like to have one help you when you're putting on your coat?_

_Don't you like old books you've dogs-eared, you can't remember when?_
_Don't you call it late at nine o'clock and go to bed at ten?_
_How many cronies can you count of all you used to know_
_Who called you by your Christian name some fifty years ago?_

_How look the prizes to you that used to fire your brain?_
_You've reared your mound-how high is it above the level plain?_
_You 've drained the brimming golden cup that made your fancy reel,_
_You've slept the giddy potion off,--now tell us how you feel!_

_You've watched the harvest ripening till every stem was cropped,_
_You 've seen the rose of beauty fade till every petal dropped,_
_You've told your thought, you 've done your task, you've tracked your
dial round,_
--I backing down! Thank Heaven, not yet! I'm hale and brisk and sound,

And good for many a tussle, as you shall live to see;
My shoes are not quite ready yet,--don't think you're rid of me!
Old Parr was in his lusty prime when he was older far,
And where will you be if I live to beat old Thomas Parr?

_Ah well,--I know,--at every age life has a certain charm,_--
_You're going? Come, permit me, please, I beg you'll take my arm._
I take your arm! Why take your arm? I 'd thank you to be told
I 'm old enough to walk alone, but not so _very_ old!

poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Related quotes

The New Duckling

'I want to be new,' said the duckling.
'O, ho!' said the wise old owl,
While the guinea-hen cluttered off chuckling
To tell all the rest of the fowl.

'I should like a more elegant figure,'
That child of a duck went on.
'I should like to grow bigger and bigger,
Until I could swallow a swan.

'I _won't_ be the bond slave of habit,
I _won't_ have these webs on my toes.
I want to run round like a rabbit,
A rabbit as red as a rose.

'I _don't_ want to waddle like mother,
Or quack like my silly old dad.
I want to be utterly other,
And _frightfully_ modern and mad.'

'Do you know,' said the turkey, 'you're quacking!
There's a fox creeping up thro' the rye;
And, if you're not utterly lacking,
You'll make for that duck-pond. Good-bye!'

'I won't,' said the duckling. 'I'll lift him
A beautiful song, like a sheep;
And when I have--as it were--biffed him,
I'll give him my feathers to keep.'

Now the curious end of this fable,
So far as the rest ascertained,
Though they searched from the barn to the stable,
Was that _only his feathers remained_.

So he _wasn't_ the bond slave of habit,
And he _didn't_ have webs on his toes;
And _perhaps_ he runs round like a rabbit,
A rabbit as red as a rose.

poem by Alfred Noyes
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The Lugubrious Whing-Whang

The rhyme o' The Raggedy Man's 'at's best
Is Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs,--
'Cause that-un's the strangest of all o' the rest,
An' the worst to learn, an' the last one guessed,
An' the funniest one, an' the foolishest.--
Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs!

I don't know what in the world it means--
Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs!--
An' nen when I _tell_ him I don't, he leans
Like he was a-grindin' on some machines
An' says: Ef I _don't_, w'y, I don't know _beans!_
Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs!--

Out on the margin of Moonshine Land,
Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs!
Out where the Whing-Whang loves to stand,
Writing his name with his tail in the sand,
And swiping it out with his oogerish hand;
Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs!

Is it the gibber of Gungs or Keeks?
Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs!
Or what _is_ the sound that the Whing-Whang seeks?--
Crouching low by the winding creeks
And holding his breath for weeks and weeks!
Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs!

Aroint him the wraithest of wraithly things!
Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs!
'Tis a fair Whing-Whangess, with phosphor rings
And bridal-jewels of fangs and stings;
And she sits and as sadly and softly sings
As the mildewed whir of her own dead wings,--
Tickle me, Dear,
Tickle me here,
Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs!

poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Discretion

SHE:
I'm told that men have sometimes got
Too confidential, and
Have said to one another what
They-well, you understand.
I hope I don't offend you, sweet,
But are you sure that _you're_ discreet?

HE:

'Tis true, sometimes my friends in wine
Their conquests _do_ recall,
But none can truly say that mine
Are known to him at all.
I never, never talk you o'er
In truth, I never get the floor.

poem by Ambrose Bierce
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Re-Edified

Lord of the tempest, pray refrain
From leveling this church again.
Now in its doom, as so you've willed it,
We acquiesce. But _you'll_ rebuild it.

poem by Ambrose Bierce
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Dreaming Of Hair

Ivy ties the cellar door
in autumn, in summer morning glory
wraps the ribs of a mouse.
Love binds me to the one
whose hair I've found in my mouth,
whose sleeping head I kiss,
wondering is it death?
beauty? this dark
star spreading in every direction from the crown of her head.

My love's hair is autumn hair, there
the sun ripens.
My fingers harvest the dark
vegtable of her body.
In the morning I remove it
from my tongue and
sleep again.

Hair spills
through my dream, sprouts
from my stomach, thickens my heart,
and tangles from the brain. Hair ties the tongue dumb.
Hair ascends the tree
of my childhood--the willow
I climbed
one bare foot and hand at a time,
feeling the knuckles of the gnarled tree, hearing
my father plead from his window, _Don't fall!_

In my dream I fly
past summers and moths,
to the thistle
caught in my mother's hair, the purple one
I touched and bled for,
to myself at three, sleeping
beside her, waking with her hair in my mouth.

Along a slippery twine of her black hair
my mother ties ko-tze knots for me:
fish and lion heads, chrysanthemum buds, the heads
of Chinamen, black-haired and frowning.

Li-En, my brother, frowns when he sleeps.
I push back his hair, stroke his brow.
His hairline is our father's, three peaks pointing down.

What sprouts from the body
and touches the body?
What filters sunlight
and drinks moonlight?
Where have I misplaced my heart?
What stops wheels and great machines?
What tangles in the bough
and snaps the loom?

Out of the grave
my father's hair
bursts. A strand
pierces my left sole, shoots
up bone, past ribs,
to the broken heart it stiches,
then down,
swirling in the stomach, in the groin, and down,
through the right foot.

What binds me to this earth?
What remembers the dead
and grows towards them?

I'm tired of thinking.
I long to taste the world with a kiss.
I long to fly into hair with kisses and weeping,
remembering an afternoon
when, kissing my sleeping father, I saw for the first time
behind the thick swirl of his black hair,
the mole of wisdom,
a lone planet spinning slowly.

Sometimes my love is melancholy
and I hold her head in my hands.
Sometimes I recall our hair grows after death.
Then, I must grab handfuls
of her hair, and, I tell you, there
are apples, walnuts, ships sailing, ships docking, and men
taking off their boots, their hearts breaking,
not knowing
which they love more, the water, or
their women's hair, sprouting from the head, rushing toward the feet.

poem by Li-Young Lee
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At A Meeting Of Friends

AUGUST 29, 1859

I REMEMBER--why, yes! God bless me! and was it so long ago?
I fear I'm growing forgetful, as old folks do, you know;
It must have been in 'forty--I would say 'thirty-nine--
We talked this matter over, I and a friend of mine.

He said, 'Well now, old fellow, I'm thinking that you and I,
If we act like other people, shall be older by and by;
What though the bright blue ocean is smooth as a pond can be,
There is always a line of breakers to fringe the broadest sea.

'We're taking it mighty easy, but that is nothing strange,
For up to the age of thirty we spend our years like Change;
But creeping up towards the forties, as fast as the old years fill,
And Time steps in for payment, we seem to change a bill.'

'I know it,' I said, 'old fellow; you speak the solemn truth;
A man can't live to a hundred and likewise keep his youth;
But what if the ten years coming shall silver-streak my hair,
You know I shall then be forty; of course I shall not care.

'At forty a man grows heavy and tired of fun and noise;
Leaves dress to the five-and-twenties and love to the silly boys;
No foppish tricks at forty, no pinching of waists and toes,
But high-low shoes and flannels and good thick worsted hose.'

But one fine August morning I found myself awake
My birthday:--By Jove, I'm forty! Yes, forty, and no mistake!
Why, this is the very milestone, I think I used to hold,
That when a fellow had come to, a fellow would then be old!

But that is the young folks' nonsense; they're full of their
foolish stuff;
A man's in his prime at forty,--I see that plain enough;
At fifty a man is wrinkled, and may be bald or gray;
I call men old at fifty, in spite of all they say.

At last comes another August with mist and rain and shine;
Its mornings are slowly counted and creep to twenty-nine,
And when on the western summits the fading light appears,
It touches with rosy fingers the last of my fifty years.

There have been both men and women whose hearts were firm and bold,
But there never was one of fifty that loved to say 'I'm old';
So any elderly person that strives to shirk his years,
Make him stand up at a table and try him by his peers.

Now here I stand at fifty, my jury gathered round;
Sprinkled with dust of silver, but not yet silver-crowned,
Ready to meet your verdict, waiting to hear it told;
Guilty of fifty summers; speak! Is the verdict _old_.

No! say that his hearing fails him; say that his sight grows dim;
Say that he's getting wrinkled and weak in back and limb,
Losing his wits and temper, but pleading, to make amends,
The youth of his fifty summers he finds in his twenty friends.

poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Young At Heart And Foolish Free

Some people when they get older
just grow old and feel older,
but there are others who remain
young at heart and foolish free.

They feel they could run for miles,
and then their lumbago stirs
and leaves them reaching
for their old walking cane once more.

Other feel they are sixteen again,
forgetting age slows us up
and our feet cannot move as fast
and they keep tripping us up.

Oh, young at heart and foolish free
is what everyone wants to be.
Running the ten minute mile
without stopping every once in a while.

Feeling party smart and wrinkle free
until they look in the mirror.
Then gasping with horror
and saying is that really me?

Young at heart and foolish free,
no one cares if you are three or a hundred and three.
You’re as young as you feel
and foolish as you want to be.

So put up that walking cane,
forget who you are, come
join me on the swings
and be young at heart and foolish free.

poem by David Harris
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The Good Memories Of What Was

I was not any use at Gaelic Football or Soccer though I played in Millstreet Townpark in the rain
And I played Soccer in Neily Duggan's Inch Field but these things I will never do again
With my young friends for us it was enjoyment but few things in life stay the same
The fire of youth in us was burning but it now is a flickering flame
We never thought about growing older the gift of youth is a great thing
Though of the past we have our memories and till death to them we will cling
The thought that we age with the Seasons does seldom enter the young mind
But the years leave us frailer and older eternal youth not for air breathing kind
But for as long as we have the gift of memory of our prime years good memories we retain
And often in our flights of fancy the past we do visit again
I still recall the joy and laughter as we chased the football up and down
On Summer evenings often wet and windy in the Townpark of old Millstreet Town
The years leave us all looking older and the clock on our lives ticking on
But the good memories of what was bring us comfort of the past to the forever gone.

poem by Francis Duggan
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A Dying Brain

Do you recall how I was once your fire –?
And we, a regal cloud of unity
Meandering through the closing blues of night,
Commanding stars to glitter;
Dawn to blush?

Your answer comes in ever-blanking stares:
A wall that blocks the know,
Damping down the glow that used to emanate
From clear and lucid eyes.
They've lost the will to recognise.

But hear! We are fifty years together –
And once we writhed in pleasure –
Drowning in emotion,
That which was our prime.

You don't recall.
You only lie as vegetation
Scattered on the ground:
A living mound of flesh,
Devoid of any neural mesh
To let you say 'I'm sound.'

Don't worry Dear,
For I'm aware with memory!
I'll tell you how we were.
We have our right of history!

If you could just concur.

Please remember, remember me, remember, remember me, remember
Please remember, remember me, remember, remember me, remember
Please remember, remember me, remember, remember me, remember
Please remember, remember me, remember, remember me, remember
Please remember, remember me, remember, remember me, remember
Please remember, remember me, remember, remember me, remember
Please remember, remember me, remember, remember me
Please remember, remember me, remember, remember
Please remember, remember me, remember
Please remember, remember me
Please remember, remember
Please remember
Please

poem by Mark R Slaughter
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A Song Of Sixty-Five

Brave Thackeray has trolled of days when he was twenty-one,
And bounded up five flights of stairs, a gallant garreteer;
And yet again in mellow vein when youth was gaily run,
Has dipped his nose in Gascon wine, and told of Forty Year.
But if I worthy were to sing a richer, rarer time,
I'd tune my pipes before the fire and merrily I'd strive
To praise that age when prose again has given way to rhyme,
The Indian Summer days of life when I'll be Sixty-five;

For then my work will all be done, my voyaging be past,
And I'll have earned the right to rest where folding hills are green;
So in some glassy anchorage I'll make my cable fast, --
Oh, let the seas show all their teeth, I'll sit and smile serene.
The storm may bellow round the roof, I'll bide beside the fire,
And many a scene of sail and trail within the flame I'll see;
For I'll have worn away the spur of passion and desire. . . .
Oh yes, when I am Sixty-five, what peace will come to me.

I'll take my breakfast in my bed, I'll rise at half-past ten,
When all the world is nicely groomed and full of golden song;
I'll smoke a bit and joke a bit, and read the news, and then
I'll potter round my peach-trees till I hear the luncheon gong.
And after that I think I'll doze an hour, well, maybe two,
And then I'll show some kindred soul how well my roses thrive;
I'll do the things I never yet have found the time to do. . . .
Oh, won't I be the busy man when I am Sixty-five.

I'll revel in my library; I'll read De Morgan's books;
I'll grow so garrulous I fear you'll write me down a bore;
I'll watch the ways of ants and bees in quiet sunny nooks,
I'll understand Creation as I never did before.
When gossips round the tea-cups talk I'll listen to it all;
On smiling days some kindly friend will take me for a drive:
I'll own a shaggy collie dog that dashes to my call:
I'll celebrate my second youth when I am Sixty-five.

Ah, though I've twenty years to go, I see myself quite plain,
A wrinkling, twinkling, rosy-cheeked, benevolent old chap;
I think I'll wear a tartan shawl and lean upon a cane.
I hope that I'll have silver hair beneath a velvet cap.
I see my little grandchildren a-romping round my knee;
So gay the scene, I almost wish 'twould hasten to arrive.
Let others sing of Youth and Spring, still will it seem to me
The golden time's the olden time, some time round Sixty-five.

poem by Robert William Service
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Recollections

DO you remember all the sunny places,
Where in bright days, long past, we played together?
Do you remember all the old home faces
That gathered round the hearth in wintry weather?
Do you remember all the happy meetings,
In Summer evenings round the open door--
Kind looks, kind hearts, kind words and tender greetings,
And clasping hands whose pulses beat no more?
Do you remember them?

Do you remember all the merry laughter;
The voices round the swing in our old garden:
The dog that, when we ran, still followed after;
The teasing frolic sure of speedy pardon:
We were but children then, young happy creatures,
And hardly knew how much we had to lose--
But now the dreamlike memory of those features
Comes back, and bids my darkened spirit muse.
Do you remember them?

Do you remember when we first departed
From all the old companions who were round us,
How very soon again we grew light-hearted,
And talked with smiles of all the links which bound us?
And after, when our footsteps were returning,
With unfelt weariness, o'er hill and plain;
How our young hearts kept boiling up, and burning,
To think how soon we'd be at home again.
Do you remember this?

Do you remember how the dreams of glory
Kept fading from us like a fairy treasure;
How we thought less of being fam'd in story,
And more of those to whom our fame gave pleasure.
Do you remember in far countries, weeping,
When a light breeze, a flower, hath brought to mind
Old happy thoughts, which till that hour were sleeping,
And made us yearn for those we left behind?
Do you remember this?

Do you remember when no sound 'woke gladly,
But desolate echoes through our home were ringing,
How for a while we talked--then paused full sadly,
Because our voices bitter thoughts were bringing?
Ah me! those days--those days! my friend, my brother,
Sit down and let us talk of all our woe,
For we have nothing left but one another;
Yet where they went, old playmate, we shall go--
Let us remember this.

poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
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So Young

Orbison/curb/christian
Dawn comes up so young, dreams begin so young
And if you live just for today the day may soon be done
But theres a place where dreams always stay so young
A place to hear the sun go down and fade away
To see the wind just run away with yesterday
Anyplace for those who care zabriskie point is anywhere
Time runs out so fast on love too good to last,so young
A time to look forevers there or never found
To touch the sky and really feel the world go round
To live to love to laugh to cry to be alone
Young,so young love was meant to be wild and free
So young young,so young love is space in life
A place in time a state of mind too late I find
When tomorrows gone and love is lost so young

song performed by by Roy Orbison
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I Dreamed About Mama Last Night

I've just been to heaven with someone so true I dreamed about mama last night
She read me the Bible like she used to do I dreamed about mama last night
She never close her eyes to sleep till we were all in bed
And on party nights when we come home she often sat and read
We little thought about it then for we were young and gay
Just how much mama worried when we children were away
We only knew she never slept when we were out at night
That she waited just to know that we'd all come home alright
Why sometimes when we'd stay away till one or two or three
It seemed to us that mama heard the turnin' of the key
For always when we'd step aside she'd call and we'd reply
But we were all too young back then to understand the reason why
Until the last one had returned she'd always keep a light
For mama couldn't sleep until she kissed us all goodnight
She had to know that we were safe before she went to rest
She seemed to fear that the world might harm the ones that she loved the best
And once she told me when you're grown to women and to men
Perhaps I'll sleep the whole night through I may be different then
And so it seemed that night and day we knew a mother's care
That always when we got back home we'd find her waitin' there
Then came the night that we were called together round her bed
The children're all with you now the kindly doctor said
And in her eyes the gleam again that old time tender light
That told that she's just been waitin' to know that we were alright
She smiled that old familiar smile and prayed to God to keep
Her children safe from harm throughout the years tand then she went to sleep
My dream is a treasure that I'll always keep I dreamed about mama last night

song performed by by Hank Williams
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Around the corner

I wont tell you the stories he has told me,
or the reason why for weeks and months
he couldn't sleep.
About the walk around the corner,
he kept walking round that corner,
walking round that corner
for days and months and weeks.
That isn't my story to tell you, only his;
but I can tell you that he walks around
that corner through his days
and through his weeks.
I can tell you that he marched them home
leading from the front,
right down through the Guildhall
to the sound of thudding drum.
I can tell you that he marched all those
young boys home.
All of them, but one.

poem by Diana Rosser
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Lusus Politicus

Come in, old gentleman. How do you do?
Delighted, I'm sure, that you've called.
I'm a sociable sort of a chap and you
Are a pleasant-appearing person, too,
With a head agreeably bald.
That's right-sit down in the scuttle of coal
And put up your feet in a chair.
It is better to have them there:
And I've always said that a hat of lead,
Such as I see you wear,
Was a better hat than a hat of glass.
And your boots of brass
Are a natural kind of boots, I swear.
'May you blow your nose on a paper of pins?'
Why, certainly, man, why not?
I rather expected you'd do it before,
When I saw you poking it in at the door.
It's dev'lish hot
The weather, I mean. 'You are twins'?
Why, that was evident at the start,
From the way that you paint your head
In stripes of purple and red,
With dots of yellow.
That proves you a fellow
With a love of legitimate art.
'You've bitten a snake and are feeling bad'?
That's very sad,
But Longfellow's words I beg to recall:
Your lot is the common lot of all.
'Horses are trees and the moon is a sneeze'?
That, I fancy, is just as you please.
Some think that way and others hold
The opposite view;
I never quite knew,
For the matter o' that,
When everything's been said
May I offer this mat
If you _will_ stand on your head?
I suppose I look to be upside down
From your present point of view.
It's a giddy old world, from king to clown,
And a topsy-turvy, too.
But, worthy and now uninverted old man,
_You're_ built, at least, on a normal plan
If ever a truth I spoke.
Smoke?
Your air and conversation
Are a liberal education,
And your clothes, including the metal hat
And the brazen boots-what's that?

'You never could stomach a Democrat
Since General Jackson ran?
You're another sort, but you predict
That your party'll get consummately licked?'
Good God! what a queer old man!

poem by Ambrose Bierce
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Thanksgiving

_The Superintendent of an Almshouse. A Pauper._

SUPERINTENDENT:

So _you're_ unthankful-you'll not eat the bird?
You sit about the place all day and gird.
I understand you'll not attend the ball
That's to be given to-night in Pauper Hall.

PAUPER:

Why, that is true, precisely as you've heard:
I have no teeth and I will eat no bird.

SUPERINTENDENT:

Ah! see how good is Providence. Because
Of teeth He has denuded both your jaws
The fowl's made tender; you can overcome it
By suction; or at least-well, you can gum it,
Attesting thus the dictum of the preachers
That Providence is good to all His creatures-
Turkeys excepted. Come, ungrateful friend,
If our Thanksgiving dinner you'll attend
You shall say grace-ask God to bless at least
The soft and liquid portions of the feast.

PAUPER.

Without those teeth my speech is rather thick
He'll hardly understand Gum Arabic.
No, I'll not dine to-day. As to the ball,
'Tis known to you that I've no legs at all.
I had the gout-hereditary; so,
As it could not be cornered in my toe
They cut my legs off in the fond belief
That shortening me would make my anguish brief.
Lacking my legs I could not prosecute
With any good advantage a pursuit;
And so, because my father chose to court
Heaven's favor with his ortolans and Port
(Thanksgiving every day!) the Lord supplied
Saws for my legs, an almshouse for my pride
And, once a year, a bird for my inside.
No, I'll not dance-my light fantastic toe
Took to its heels some twenty years ago.
Some small repairs would be required for putting
My feelings on a saltatory footing.

_(Sings)_

O the legless man's an unhappy chap
_Tum-hi, tum-hi, tum-he o'haddy
The favors o' fortune fall not in his lap
_Tum-hi, tum-heedle-do hum
The plums of office avoid his plate
No matter how much he may stump the State
_Tum-hi, ho-heeee._
The grass grows never beneath his feet,
But he cannot hope to make both ends meet
_Tum-hi._
With a gleeless eye and a somber heart,
He plays the role of his mortal part:
Wholly himself he can never be.
O, a soleless corporation is he!
_Tum_.

SUPERINTENDENT:

The chapel bell is calling, thankless friend,
Balls you may not, but church you _shall_, attend.
Some recognition cannot be denied
To the great mercy that has turned aside
The sword of death from us and let it fall
Upon the people's necks in Montreal;
That spared our city, steeple, roof and dome,
And drowned the Texans out of house and home;
Blessed all our continent with peace, to flood
The Balkan with a cataclysm of blood.
Compared with blessings of so high degree,
Your private woes look mighty small-to me.

poem by Ambrose Bierce
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Whipped

Is there anything that can help me let go
I’m tired of crying down this road
I’m young should I feel this old
I’m tired of being split
I’m tired of feeling whipped
I’m tired of not knowing what’s right
I’m tired of looking for this light
I’m tired of living wrong
I’m tired of crying to this repeating sad song
I’m tired of wrong feeling so right
I’m tired of fighting with all my might
I’m tired of hoping friends will be by my side
I’m tired of my feelings I hide
I’m tired of no one picking up the phone
I’m tired of being home
I’m tired of the sun
I’m tired of the moon
I’m tired of thinking what to do
I’m tired of you

All I ever think of is hope
And all I ever heard is have faith
I feel fragile like an old piece of rope
And know I did nothing but disgrace
I hoped to be a good man
I hoped to have a plan
I hoped to be the one
I hoped to have some fun
I hoped life was easer than they say
I hoped home was where I lay
I hoped I always knew right
I hoped I would always fight
I hoped me was the one you see
I hoped true love would always be
I hoped I didn’t need to rest
I hoped life meant happiness

Hope and faith are strong words
They fly away easy like birds
Does one ever know where they stand?
Its harder than I thought to be a man
I remember being young and free
I remember trying to be me
I remember when I first fell in love
I remember hearing the sound of a dove
I remember being young wishing I was old
I remember trying to live out side the mold
I remember when I would dream
I remember when it was all about me
I remember when I wanted to be where I am
I remember that meant I needed to be man
I remember when life was fun
I remember shooting out like a gun
I remember love was a rush
I remember the first time I was crushed
I remember doing and not thinking
I remember doing nothing but drinking
I remember trying to make my tears dry
I remember the feeling of telling a lie
I remember when the world was at my feet
I remember the feeling of being beat
I remember being ashamed of who I am
I remember at one time I knew where I stand

Memory is a gift or is it a curse
It showed you at your best and at your worse
Time is something that should be taken slowly
I don’t want to be old and lonely
I know not to always follow my gut
I know ill always be in this rut
I know tomorrow will come
I know yesterday is gone
I know I will run
I know I am wrong
I know ill live
I know ill die
I know not to ask why

poem by Lesten WhitePigeon
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Bewildering Emotions

The merriment that followed was subdued--
As though the story-teller's attitude
Were dual, in a sense, appealing quite
As much to sorrow as to mere delight,
According, haply, to the listener's bent
Either of sad or merry temperament.--
'And of your two appeals I much prefer
The pathos,' said 'The Noted Traveler,'--
'For should I live to twice my present years,
I know I could not quite forget the tears
That child-eyes bleed, the little palms nailed wide,
And quivering soul and body crucified....
But, bless 'em! there are no such children here
To-night, thank God!--Come here to me, my dear!'
He said to little Alex, in a tone
So winning that the sound of it alone
Had drawn a child more lothful to his knee:--
'And, now-sir, _I'll_ agree if _you'll_ agree,--
_You_ tell us all a story, and then _I_
Will tell one.'

'_But I can't._'

'Well, can't you _try?_'
'Yes, Mister: he _kin_ tell _one_. Alex, tell
The one, you know, 'at you made up so well,
About the _Bear_. He allus tells that one,'
Said Bud,--'He gits it mixed some 'bout the _gun_
An' _ax_ the Little Boy had, an' _apples_, too.'--
Then Uncle Mart said--'There, now! that'll do!--
Let _Alex_ tell his story his own way!'
And Alex, prompted thus, without delay
Began.

poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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