Always The Poems In Me

Always the poems in me-
Saying themselves over and over
Returning to lines learned long ago
Or lines learned with more difficulty in old age-

Always the poems in me-
While my own poems written
And forgotten
As if only
Poems of a single occasion
The time of their writing-

Always the poems in me-
The poems which others will have in them after me
Poems not my own.

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Not Every Poem Knows How To Say Its Own Name Properly

NOT EVERY POEM KNOWS HOW TO SAY ITS OWN NAME PROPERLY

Not every poem knows how to say its own name properly-
There are poems that have no name
And poems that are named by others who have not written them-
There are poems whose names make them what they are
And poems whose names contradict and belie them-
Many poems have their first lines as their names
And these poems often are as memorable as one line only-
Great poems and good poems can be nameless
Or can have unforgettable names.

Not every poem knows how to say its own name properly -
Poems are poems are poems
And names are names are names
And sometimes they meet and are one
And live happily ever after-
But there are times when perhaps
They never should have met each other at all.

Poems have their names
And names have their poems
But sometimes they love each other
And truly are one.

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I Have Read Many Poems I Know I Never Could Have Written

I have read many poems I know I never could have written
Poems whose language was far richer and more remarkable than mine
Poems that saw as I cannot see and sounded as I cannot sound
Poems of magnificent music and many hidden meanings
I have read many poems greater than those I could ever write
And have been humbled and saddened and inspired by them
Out there somewhere else
There have been real poets
And I in my own little lines
Love and respect them.

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The Poems Written About Poetry

The poems written about Poetry
Seemed to be self- indulgent and self- serving,
The Poet worshipping what he does
And making himself Holy-

But in some other way
They were simply Explorations
Efforts at understanding the Art
And improving the Music-

They were in their own quiet way small adventures
And gifts to other would- be- poets
And lovers of intense lines-

The poems written about the poetry
Were small additions to a long history
Poems about poems-

One kind of poem
In a world
Where there is no end to more and many.

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I Have Written Many Poor Poems

I have written many poor poems
That may not be poems at all -
They are single in dimension
Prose
In short lines of seemingly poetic form-

They do not call for their rereading
They are not difficult in ambiguities-

They seem to me only one simple clearly understood thing-

Like this poem

They can be understood at once
And forgotten soon after.

I have written many poor poems
That may not be poems at all

And this is another one.

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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

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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.

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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.

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Insomniac

there is something in me that does not sleep
and all the rest are protesting in these
sacrifices


the bed is warm it is hot it has fire and it will burn me
i need to step outside
to feel the rain asking for more water
to cool me

i am here in this pool of water
water poems, cool lines of water poems
some pails of poems some lines that lull
some pills of poems
that i swallow
to make me sleep
but when? these poems do not have the word

sleep, or weary, or bore
they have this word they like
insomniac

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Oh The Poems And More Poems

OH THE POEMS AND THE MORE POEMS

Oh the poems and the more poems
The wonderful poems I am writing all the time
God has given me this gift
And when I wait in the right way
And when I listen to myself properly
The poems come in ways I could never have thought of or imagined before
They come as mysteries as gifts as surprises
As wonderful to me as perhaps to you their possible readers
Oh the poems and the more poems
The wonderful poems God has given me
And the light of this day and so many other days, also.

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I Have Written Too Many Poems Of Despair

I HAVE WRITTEN TOO MANY POEMS OF DESPAIR

I have written too many poems of despair-
Too much complaint-
Too much sorrow grief sadness difficulty pain-
I should have written more of hope of youth of love-
I should have sung of happiness
I should have been been a poet
Who helps others love life more

I can try now-

But can words of ‘will’ really be poetry?

It is when the lines come to the mind and heart
On their own
Naturally
That the poem begins to live.

Does this sound like a ‘happy poem’?
Or yet another lament for what I am
And have not been?

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The Poems Bring Me Back To Myself

THE POEMS BRING ME BACK TO MYSELF

The poems bring me back to myself
I begin to live again –

Without the poems
I would have to make a new life-

I do not know if I am capable of it-

A life without poems without poetry
With other words perhaps-

I am too old to slowly write the long narrative
I never was capable of before

Little poems
Little lines
What I am capable of now.

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No Goldfish

Who will care
for my poems
when I die?

I have no goldfish
or pet cat
to give away.


My poems will cuddle up
serenely curl up with you
on a long winter’s evening.

My poems will swim and flash
tails of intricate golden detail
on a long cozy winter’s evening.


Who will care
for my poems
when I am gone?

Goldfish are a sacred species
cats are a sacred species
all life is a sacred species somewhere.


Poems are also
a sacred life force.
For it is the task appointed
to the divine poet to render;

foolish humanity worthy
when seeking redemption,
through hidden wisdom written
within sealed lines, in a starlit poem.


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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.

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Which Poems Are True and Which Poems Only A Story?

WHICH POEMS ARE TRUE AND WHICH POEMS ONLY A STORY?

Which poems are true
and which poems only a story?

There are poems I have to write
They are the heart of who I am-
And other poems that tell a story my mind makes
And takes me where I do not know I'll ever really be-

There are real poems and there are imaginary poems-
And there are poems-in- between like this one.

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All My Poems Rage In Me

ALL MY POEMS RAGE IN ME

All my poems rage in me,
Written and unwritten
But now I only write this one down
As if it in this moment
Stands for all of them.

Oh God what would I be
Without the poems
And what I am really
With them?

The day has been so long
And the twilight has come
And silence is all around me
And the Poems continue to rage
As if I never lived
And they too
Only will die.

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There Are Poems Too Painful To Be Written

THERE ARE POEMS TOO PAINFUL TO BE WRITTEN

There are poems too painful to be written
Poems also too shameful-
And poems that cannot be said,
Because of the pain they would give others.

No one can tell all their truth
Without hurting too much.

Silence may be sacred
Hiding – True Love.

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An Old Man Tries/ To Memorize A Few Lines

AN OLD MAN TRIES/ TO MEMORIZE A FEW LINES

An old man tries,
To memorize a few lines-
His mind is slower than it was.

Inside,
Where the old poems lie-
He writes and rewrites them.

But he knows,
His poems now are not what they were,
And he is not what he was
And the world isn’t either.

Dark days are coming
And with them Darker nights
May we have the strength
To survive them.

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The Poem Is Restless In Me

THE POEM IS RESTLESS IN ME

The poem is restless in me-
It waits to be heard-
Now that it comes
It does not feel especially happy about itself.
It knows it is not real-
It is not much-
Just because it is called a poem by me
Does not make it a poem -
The mind has its own place-
My mind also -
I am always thinking poems are with me,
And poems waiting to come-
But who am I and what do I know?
These lines are written in the still of the morning
When the light outside still brings hope
That a new day is possible.
But so many poems have been written in the early morning
And I am so old from hearing them said to me by myself-
And what does it all mean anyway in the end when God is the Only One?
And who am I to know what God is, or invoke the name of God
In such a small thing as my own poetry?

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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.

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I Have Written Too Many Imperfect Poems

I HAVE WRITTEN TOO MANY IMPERFECT POEMS

I have written too many imperfect poems
This is another one.

Years have gone by,
Where are the perfect poems?

A handful of true poems
And the poet does not die.

Where are mine?

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