There Are Too Many Contradictions In A Life
There Are Too Many Contradictions In A Life
There are too many contradictions in a life
to ever write that life down in perfect clarity.
All we can do is select moments of our experience
and make of our great pretensions little Poems.
The whole Truth is a different Poem
one too subtle for us to completely write.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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I Write The Contradictions Of My Heart
I WRITE THE CONTRADICTIONS OF MY HEART
I write the contradictions of my heart
I give them to you freely-
But you have your own contradictions
And where are they in relation to mine?
We share what we are
But also do not-
I write for you
And you are silent for me-
And I thank you guiltily
for the blessing of your listening.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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A Not a Poem Poem
A Not a Poem Poem
I will not write a poem
For I am not a poet
I cannot makes things rhyme
I’ve tried for quite some time
So will I write a poem?
NO!
I can’t write poetry
I’ve tried to all my life
Once, I tried to write a poem
About a husband and his wife
It sounded really silly
So I crumbled it up into a ball
That’s why I decided
That I couldn’t write poetry at all
Am I gonna write a poem?
NO!
Well, I’ll try to write a poem
But it will be really bad
It will be absolutely lousy
It will be completely horrible
It won’t be up to snuff
People will say, “Who wrote this stuff? ”
Will my poem be good?
NO!
Can I write a poem?
NO!
Will I write a poem?
NO!
Well, what do you know! ? !
I wrote a poem!
And it’s a pretty good poem, too!
I guess I can write poetry if I try
The next time I’m asked to write a poem,
Will I say no?
NO!
Life
MID A HOARD OF PARADOXES INDEED,
ENTWINED IN A SERIES OF CONTRADICTIONS,
BE CAREFUL TO TAKE UTMOST HEED.
AVOID ONE OF LIFE’S GREAT AFFLICTIONS.
NEVER NURTURE IMAGES OF SIMPLICITY’S LIE.
DON’T BATTLE CONTRADICTIONS THAT ARE REAL.
ESPOUSE THE CHANCE TO UNDERSTAND WHY
OR ACCEPT THEM ON FAITH AND WITH ZEAL.
PEOPLE AREN’T ALL GOOD NOR ARE THEY ALL BAD;
AS THE SUN THAT GIVES LIFE AND TAKES IT AWAY.
DON’T LET PARADOXES OR CONTRADITIONS BE SAD.
THEN HAPPINESS WILL RULE YOUR DAY.
BUT IF YOU DRINK FROM THE CUP OF SIMPLICITY,
REFUSING TO ACCEPT LIFE’S CONTRADICTIONS,
MOST SURELY YOU’LL BE ANGRY, SAD AND LONLEY,
PARADOXICALLY ONE OF LIFE’S GREAT AFFLICTIONS.
poem by Gregory Huyette
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What Is A Jewish Poem?
WHAT IS A JEWISH POEM?
What is a Jewish poem?
‘Shema’ is a Jewish poem
Perhaps the Jewish poem-
'Shmoneh Esreh' is comprised of Jewish poems
Nineteen prayers as one-
Our history is filled with Jewish poems-
From the beginning with Abraham and Sarah
Those who have given so much beyond our understanding -
Jewish poems everywhere -
Is each Jewish life a poem and a story also?
Or is it only those who give something to our people and history
Who are worthy of Poetry?
I have known many Jewish poems
People the great world will not know the names of
People who whether they walked humbly or not
Made the lives of others better in some way –
Kindness is perhaps the ultimate Jewish poem
And Justice also-
And Jewish poems are not without their contradictions –
As I write this poem in Jerusalem in the land of Israel
I think of the small Jewish world of Troy New York where I came from so many years ago
And miss so many people no longer of that and this world –
Longing for Israel for two thousand years was the Jewish poem
Living here now is a blessing and a gift
I thank God for.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.
quote by Michel de Montaigne
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Poems Poems
poems poems every where does any one care
poems are your life but do you include them
poems may seem silly but there a great part of life
so say a poem write a poem listen to a poem be the poem
poem by Samantha Thuringer
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I Write to Tell the Truth I Have Known
I DREAMED I WAS A POEM
I dreamed I was a poem
And the universe read and reread me-
Until waking up I understood
I would never be written again.
I WRITE TO TELL THE TRUTH I HAVE KNOWN
I write to tell the truth I have known -
But there is so much truth
And so much life unrecognized and unremembered-
Most of my life has gone by
Unknown to me-
And even my most intense moments
Cannot be remembered so as to be re- experienced.
I
poem by Shalom Freedman
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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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Life Is Too Complex For A Single Poem
Life is too complex for a single poem-
In the course of a single day
How many moods and contradictions?
How many problems and worries at once?
How many little joys and perceptions
Of so varied kinds?
Yesterday for the first time I saw a grandchild smile-
I heard someone I was a carer for will probably soon die-
I danced at a wedding,
And felt again my failure in making money through the years-
So many contradictions
And yet when there is a life
And when a new baby smiles and grimaces,
How sad and beautiful how painful and rich
How defeating and hope-filled
Our life can be-
poem by Shalom Freedman
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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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Why I Write?
I write poems for myself and I write for the readers
I write for the masses and I write for the leaders
I write to imprint my thoughts in people's mind
I write to make the bad guys helpful and kind
I write to light up our path to Great God
I write for everyone home and abroad
I write to preserve values new and old
I write to make my ink precious like gold
I write for peace and I write for progress
I write to make the world a better place
All major issues I want to address
I write to see smile on God's face
poem by Asif Andalib
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I Write A Poem For Myself
I WRITE A POEM FOR MYSELF
I write a poem for myself
But it is also for you
And you write a poem for me
And it is also for yourself-
And we write and we are
And we read and we are
Poems and more poems
Life and more life
Ourselves and not ourselves.
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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I Write To Write To Write
I WANT TO WRITE TO WRITE TO WRITE
I write to write to write-
A poem must be more than a straining against Emptiness-
A poem must be more than making a name.
A poem should be food for the heart and soul and mind
It should make us feel the world with new love
It should make us want to live more and more
A poem should make us love life
It should be written for its readers
And not for its poet alone
A poem should make us want to be in this world
In greater beauty and greater love.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Poem I Wrote Yesterday/ The Poem I Write Today
THE POEM I WROTE YESTERDAY/THE POEM I WRITE TODAY
The poem I wrote yesterday
The poem I write today
The poem I will write tomorrow
What do they all mean?
Life goes on
Even my life will go on for a time
Without them.
True they give me hope now
But hope is another kind of delusion-
Creature of hopes and dreams delusions and poems
I go on now writing another poem hoping that you somewhere
Will want to know and read and remember it.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Poem I Did Not Write Today
THE POEM I DID NOT WRITE TODAY
The poem I did not write today
Will never be written.
No one knows what it is
Or where it is
'How it can be? ' is another question
No one can answer.
The poem I did not write today
Never went away
It is always here with me and with you
It is the same simple poem
Written over and over again
In our everyday minds.
It is the poem of love of life
The poem of happiness
The poem of belief in God
And in the goodness in the world to come
It is the poem which believes too that poetry will help save the world.
It is the good poem
The happy poem
The poem I did not write today
Is the poem my life is writing now and always
And with you it says
‘What a miracle it is that we are here
reading and writing
and loving life as we do’.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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So Many People Have No Poem
SO MANY PEOPLE HAVE NO POEM
So many people have no poem.
No one writes of them and for them,
And perhaps it is not important to most of them.
But for the few who need and want a poem
And cannot write a poem of their own
Shouldn’t there be someone to write for them?
I have tried to write for a few
But not that well either.
Who will write for them?
Who will listen for them?
God Maker of all Poems and Silences,
You Alone can save us,
The makers of poems
And those who are only listeners.
God You Alone-Write their names for them.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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If We In Verse Slay Ourselves
with 'something to say'
which needs to be said
it is not necessary for us
to 'live long enough to write
the poem we know we can write'
because with something to say
if we seek universal truth
if we dedicated write enough
at least a few poems will
eventually be 'the poem
we know we can write'
if we in verse slay ourselves
poem by Terence George Craddock
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Scribbler's Stymie
Pen and paper in sight
I've got no poem to write
Staying up all night
I've got no poem to write
Although my mind is bright
I've got no poem to write
It's windy out tonight, should I go fly a kite?
I've got no poem to write
My ceiling, it is white
I've got no poem to write
It's 4: 59! Five, but not quite
I've got no poem to write
In your arms I'd feel so light
I've got no poem to write
I've had no sleep tonight
I've got no poem to write
Will you just hold me tight?
I've got no poem to write
Outside it's almost light
I've got no poem to write
It's late, off goes my light
I've got no poem to write
poem by Julia Grace
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Who Does Not Really Want To Write The Best Poem In The World?
yes, a five-star poem.
the one fit for first prize
awards, the one that will
make you famous
worldwide,
who does not like to
go on tv? read that famous
poem personally.
me? sorry i don't.
i am tired writing the best poem
of my life
been writing for years
i can imagine
trying to fit in
with the most famous ones
dead and alive
but i know i can never write it
because i can't
because i don't
because i do not have any reason
to write it.
i love to write.
AND that is foremost.
that is final. nothing ambitious.
nothing to change your world
or this world or that world
nothing to influence another
indonesian or turk
or swedish or
anybody or anything
what advantage do i get
when i say i just love to write
when i say i do not want to write the best poem in the world?
nothing, except the joy of having
to make the deep breath
in my life.
air that fills my lungs
and make me dream and make me sleep
longer than you do.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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