Presences
THIS night has been so strange that it seemed
As if the hair stood up on my head.
From going-down of the sun I have dreamed
That women laughing, or timid or wild,
In rustle of lace or silken stuff,
Climbed up my creaking stair. They had read
All I had rhymed of that monstrous thing
Returned and yet unrequited love.
They stood in the door and stood between
My great wood lectern and the fire
Till I could hear their hearts beating:
One is a harlot, and one a child
That never looked upon man with desire.
And one, it may be, a queen.
poem by William Butler Yeats
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Aedh Tells of a Valley Full of Lovers
I dreamed that I stood in a valley, and amid sighs,
For happy lovers passed two by two where I stood;
And I dreamed my lost love came stealthily out of the wood
With her cloud-pale eyelids falling on dream-dimmed eyes:
I cried in my dream ‘O women bid the young men lay
‘Their heads on your knees, and drown their eyes with your hair,
‘Or remembering hers they will find no other face fair
‘Till all the valleys of the world have been withered away.’
poem by William Butler Yeats
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A Christmas Carol
The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap,
His hair was like a light.
(O weary, weary were the world,
But here is all aright.)
The Christ-child lay on Mary's breast,
His hair was like a star.
(O stern and cunning are the kings,
But here the true hearts are.)
The Christ-child lay on Mary's heart,
His hair was like a fire.
(O weary, weary is the world,
But here the world's desire.)
The Christ-child stood at Mary's knee,
His hair was like a crown,
And all the flowers looked up at him.
And all the stars looked down.
poem by G.K. Chesterton from The Wild Knight and Other Poems (1900)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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He Tells Of A Valley Full Of Lovers
I DREAMED that I stood in a valley, and amid sighs,
For happy lovers passed two by two where I stood;
And I dreamed my lost love came stealthily out of the wood
With her cloud-pale eyelids falling on dream-dimmed eyes:
I cried in my dream, O women, bid the young men lay
Their heads on your knees, and drown their eyes with your fair,
Or remembering hers they will find no other face fair
Till all the valleys of the world have been withered away.
poem by William Butler Yeats
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Over The Falls
They broke out in laughter again,
His lip beaded with sweat as they strapped him in,
And he stood by and waited to be called.
The talk was of times that had gone by
And the quantity and quality of women they lie.
His eyes welled with wet and his mouth had gone dry.
As he stood by and waited to be called.
He stood by and waited to be called.
He stood by and waited like the others before
For his turn to go over the falls.
He got up and tried it again.
For lack of persistence is surely a sin.
As he stood by and waited to be called,
He looked to the lightning with glee
And admired his vessel for its symmetry,
Feeling twelve units shy of a bachelors degree.
As he stood by and waited to be called.
He stood by and waited to be called.
He stood by and waited like the others before
For his turn to go over the falls.
song performed by by Primus
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Hillbilly Hollywood
I can still remember my first guitar
Bright and shiny like a brand new car
Even took it with me when I went to school
And I practiced every day till I got real good
I learned every lick on the radio
From wabash cannon to go johnny go
I majored in rhythm with a minor in blues
Then I hit the road with my blue suede shoes
And I dreamed of seeing my name in lights
Grand ole opry on on a saturday night
Standing where my heroes stood
Hillbilly hollywood
I played some bars where you never wanna go
From oklahoma city down to tupelo
My ears would be ringing like an old fire bell
When Id lay me down in some cheap hotel
And I dreamed of seeing my name in lights
Grand ole opry on a saturday night
Standing where my heroes stood
Hillbilly hollywood
And I pray before too long
They will hear my song
And I dreamed of seeing my name in lights
Grand ole opry on a saturday night
Standing where my heroes stood
I dreamed grand old opry on a saturday night standing . .
Hillbilly hollywood hillbilly hollywood hillbilly hollywood
song performed by by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Love
Love is the sunlight of the soul,
That, shining on the silken-tressèd head
Of her we love, around it seems to shed
A golden angel-aureole.
And all her ways seem sweeter ways
Than those of other women in that light:
She has no portion with the pallid night,
But is a part of all fair days.
Joy goes where she goes, and good dreams—
Her smile is tender as an old romance
Of Love that dies not, and her soft eye’s glance
Like sunshine set to music seems.
Queen of our fate is she, but crowned
With purple hearts-ease for her womanhood.
There is no place so poor where she has stood
But evermore is holy ground.
An angel from the heaven above
Would not be fair to us as she is fair:
She holds us in a mesh of silken hair,
This one sweet woman whom we love.
We pray thee, Love, our souls to steep
In dreams wherein thy myrtle flowereth;
So when the rose leaves shiver, feeling Death
Pass by, we may remain asleep:
Asleep, with poppies in our hands,
From all the world and all its cares apart—
Cheek close to cheek, heart beating against heart,
While through Life’s sandglass run the sands
poem by Victor James Daley
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Two Look at Two
Love and forgetting might have carried them
A little further up the mountain side
With night so near, but not much further up.
They must have halted soon in any case
With thoughts of a path back, how rough it was
With rock and washout, and unsafe in darkness;
When they were halted by a tumbled wall
With barbed-wire binding. They stood facing this,
Spending what onward impulse they still had
In One last look the way they must not go,
On up the failing path, where, if a stone
Or earthslide moved at night, it moved itself;
No footstep moved it. 'This is all,' they sighed,
Good-night to woods.' But not so; there was more.
A doe from round a spruce stood looking at them
Across the wall, as near the wall as they.
She saw them in their field, they her in hers.
The difficulty of seeing what stood still,
Like some up-ended boulder split in two,
Was in her clouded eyes; they saw no fear there.
She seemed to think that two thus they were safe.
Then, as if they were something that, though strange,
She could not trouble her mind with too long,
She sighed and passed unscared along the wall.
'This, then, is all. What more is there to ask?'
But no, not yet. A snort to bid them wait.
A buck from round the spruce stood looking at them
Across the wall as near the wall as they.
This was an antlered buck of lusty nostril,
Not the same doe come back into her place.
He viewed them quizzically with jerks of head,
As if to ask, 'Why don't you make some motion?
Or give some sign of life? Because you can't.
I doubt if you're as living as you look."
Thus till he had them almost feeling dared
To stretch a proffering hand -- and a spell-breaking.
Then he too passed unscared along the wall.
Two had seen two, whichever side you spoke from.
'This must be all.' It was all. Still they stood,
A great wave from it going over them,
As if the earth in one unlooked-for favour
Had made them certain earth returned their love.
poem by Robert Frost
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The Night Visitor
Three times the knock it came to me
and opening up the door
I saw no person standing there
for help or succour plea.
I sat back down to lift the book
and Donne his Epicedes,
beside the embers I had sat,
three times again the sound.
My heart it stilled,
my heart it froze,
for no wind blew the cottage sky,
alone but lit by moon.
The sound again did slowly make,
was someone dead or going home?
for I with book and embers stood
afraid and now alone.
I stood and to the knock at once,
a soul upon my door,
for only wood could make that sound,
that I could hear again.
I slowly lifted up the latch,
and fearly opened up,
the door it let the ember glow
outside into the path.
I looked to see into the dark,
and there an Angel girl,
of long black hair,
and handsome form
did stand and beckon on.
Out into forest I was brought,
with hand and heart entwined.
We danced by pines,
and kissed by stars,
a garland she did make.
And oh! what night of reveries,
and oh! what night of care,
my youth returned again to make,
our love upon the carpet moss
alone lit by the moon.
And when awoke, I saw was gone,
the angel girl and joy,
I thought that I had dreamed
the scene beneath the single star.
But standing up I made my way
the cottage open door,
the fireside chair alone it kept
the poems for resting there.
And in the morning by the sun,
a light on pathway shone.
A garland made of pines and cones
lay there upon the step.
Let us not laugh at reveries
of love the heart can make,
the angel girl, she beckons
on to mossy carpet heart,
as lit by forest moon.
poem by Bernard Kennedy
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A Spinster At Mass
She came in dressed
in the robe of a mayoress
Her hair, curly and golden
Like that of a Roman goddess
She looked round
Her eyes, large and round
Like that of a fancy bulb.
With them she me espied
In a corner under a deck
of this unnamed Church.
Behold, here's a Pandora
at mass,
As she passed;
Not even the parson
could bypass,
He stood there like a dead
wood and stared and stared
Till his eye balls fell
from its sockets
We stared and stared
And still we stood there
and stared
Till our piety fell.
poem by Efe Benjamin
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Descry
I stood in a grand wood alone
whispering to God upon his throne:
' Is it truly true
nothing is more powerful
than magnificent You? '
Then, I stood by the great ocean
and whispered to God:
'Can You hear me above the roar?
How will You find me,
my footprints have washed away all along the shore? '
Finally, I stood upon the highest mountain top
and whispered to God:
'Can you see me now,
the mere speck that I am,
even just a glimpse, somehow? '
No reply came.
Not in words
I could hear.
No powerful voice
loud and clear.
I waited
'til the end
of day.
Then quietly, alone,
I simply walked away.
On my way home
travelling into the dusk,
a desert I did pass through
with a quiet and lonely
darkened view.
Nothing moved,
not a sound.
Except, for the slightest breeze
whisper wonders my way,
through the tops of a few scraggly trees.
I stoped
I looked
I stood.
Amazed at this wind
passing by through the twisted and bent woods.
It was at that moment
in the darkness,
at the edge of desolation, among the lowly trees,
that I became fully aware,
God is everywhere, even right here next to me.
poem by Smoky Hoss
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How He Saw Angus, The God
I heard the swallow sing in the eaves and rose
All in a strange delight while others slept,
And down the creaking stair, alone, tip-toes,
So carefully I crept.
The house was dark with silly blinds yet drawn,
But outside the clean air was filled with light,
And underneath my feet the cold, wet lawn
With dew was twinkling bright.
The cobwebs hung from every branch and spray
Gleaming with pearly strands of laden thread,
And long and still the morning shadows lay
Across the meadows spread.
At that pure hour when yet no sound of man,
Stirs in the whiteness of the wakening earth,
Alone through innocent solitudes I ran
Singing aloud for mirth.
Till I had found the open mountain heath
Yellow with gorse, and rested there and stood
To gaze upon the misty sea beneath,
Or on the neighbouring wood,
—That little wood of hazel and tall pine
And youngling fir, where oft we have loved to see
The level beams of early morning shine
Freshly from tree to tree.
Through the denser wood there's many a pool
Of deep and night-born shadow lingers yet
Where the new-wakened flowers are damp and cool
And the long grass is wet.
In the sweet heather long I rested there
Looking upon the dappled, early sky,
When suddenly, from out the shining air
A god came flashing by.
Swift, naked, eager, pitilessly fair,
With a live crown of birds about his head,
Singing and fluttering, and his fiery hair,
Far out behind him spread,
Streamed like a rippling torch upon the breeze
Of his own glorious swiftness: in the grass
He bruised no feathery stalk, and through the trees
I saw his whiteness pass.
But when I followed him beyond the wood,
Lo! He was changed into a solemn bull
That there upon the open pasture stood
And browsed his lazy full.
poem by Clive Staples Lewis
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Another Dark Day
ANOTHER DARK DAY
From the arrays in the sky
eclipses another bright star
A curtain is drawn
A life, to an abrupt end
A flower once blossomed
now withers away.
Far away in Pakistan
A lone voice is cut in its prime
A life which stood against oppresion
A life which stood for justice
A life which stood for equality
A life which stood for democracy
Snuffed out in daylight
How bizzare
How cowardly
How cruel
This life now withers away
Adieu Benazir Bhutto
A life that counts
Better to die a hero
Than live an unsung life
The world mourns you
In our hearts, you live on
Till we meet again
Good night Mama
poem by Olumide Familusi
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My Fathers House
Last night I dreamed that I was a child
Out where the pines grow wild and tall
I was trying to make it home through the forest
Before the darkness falls
I heard the wind rustling through the trees
And ghostly voices rose from the fields
I ran with my heart pounding down that broken path
With the devil snappin at my heels
I broke through the trees, and there in the night
My fathers house stood shining hard and bright
The branches and brambles tore my clothes and scratched my arms
But I ran till I fell, shaking in his arms
I awoke and I imagined the hard things that pulled us apart
Will never again, sir, tear us from each others hearts
I got dressed, and to that house I did ride
From out on the road, I could see its windows shining in light
I walked up the steps and stood on the porch
A woman I didnt recognize came and spoke to me through a chained door
I told her my story, and who Id come for
She said Im sorry, son, but no one by that name lives here anymore
My fathers house shines hard and bright
It stands like a beacon calling me in the night
Calling and calling, so cold and alone
Shining 'cross this dark highway where our sins lie unatoned
song performed by by Bruce Springsteen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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My Fathers House
(bruce springsteen)
Last night I dreamed that I was a child
Out where the pines grow wild and tall
I was trying to make it home through the forest
Before the darkness falls
I heard the wind rustling through the trees
And ghostly voices rose from the fields
I ran with my heart pounding down that broken path
With the devil snappin at my heels
I broke through the trees, and there in the night
My fathers house stood shining hard and bright
The branches and brambles tore my clothes and scratched my arms
But I ran till I fell, shaking in his arms
I awoke and I imagined the hard things that pulled us apart
Will never again, sir, tear us from each others hearts
I got dressed, and to that house I did ride
From out on the road, I could see its windows shining in light
I walked up the steps and stood on the porch
A woman I didnt recognize came and spoke to me through a chained door
I told her my story, and who Id come for
She said Im sorry, son, but no one by that name lives here anymore
My fathers house shines hard and bright
It stands like a beacon calling me in the night
Calling and calling, so cold and alone
Shining cross this dark highway where our sins lie unatoned
song performed by by Emmylou Harris
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Half In Day, Half In Night!
what if you moved the mountain?
raised your hand and stilled the storm?
fed the hungry, healed the sick,
and stood up and stopped all wars?
what if you peeled back the mask of prejudice,
and exposed the beating heart?
what if you walked on the water?
what if you built a temple,
using only your own hands?
what if you made your life a prayer?
what if you gave all you had to the poor?
what if you did all of this,
and it still wasnt enough?
would you be willing to go on?
what if i gave you my heart,
my spirit, and my soul?
and laid my body at your feet,
sacrificing my dreams for yours?
what if i stood up like a man
and demanded an answer?
would you know,
and would you care?
what if i opened the door
and flew into the night?
would there be a light on
when i returned?
what if i just dont know
anything else to say or do?
so what if i just be me?
would you recognize the man
standing, half in day,
and half in night?
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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House Pets
THE white cat is sleeping by the fire,
With her paws tucked under her chin,
Very tame and gentle she is sleeping
Whom I saw but now come in,
Come in from the dark night and the wild wood,
A hunter with her prey she came,
And her chin and her little paws were bloody,
And she was not kind and tame,
But wild and strong and cruel with her victim,
For she let it go, and caught it as it ran,
And she tossed it in the air and danced about it,
And once she stood erect like a man.
And I thought, 'What wild things are they that we harbor,
Who bend to the routine of daily life; '
And I looked across the room and by the fire
I saw my sleeping wife.
poem by Alice Duer Miller
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When Time Stood Still
Far beyond the things you see
Time rolls on eternally
Got a thing about it
Just cant live without it
Sitting there inside your mind
Just waiting for the clock to chime
On a lonely line
Stood a lonely man
No pictures on an empty wall
No body there no one at all
Just echoes in the ivory halls
When time stood still
Days line up outside the door
Thought time had stopped there was no more
Been a lonely world
Such a lonely world
No pictures on an empty wall
No toulouse, vincent, or pablo
Just echoes in the ivory halls
When time stood still
No big machine or april showers
No submarines no plastic flowers
Just echoes in the ivory towers
When time stood still
When time stood still
When time stood still
When time stood still
song performed by by Electric Light Orchestra
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Grownup
(carly simon)
I stood in the doorway in my white nightgown
Red roses on cotton, I stood three feet from the ground
The grownups inside used words I didnt know
But still I enjoyed the show
They looked so lovely, they looked so self-assured
And I just like them would know it all when I matured
And I wouldnt be afraid of the darkness or the bears
Or the cracks in the ceiling upstairs
Now Ive just gotten older, Ive just gotten taller
And the little ones, they call me a grownup
Lat night at a friends house a little girl was there
She stood in the doorway playing with her hair
She looked up to me as if I could do no wrong
As I got up to sing my song
I sang it with a shiver in my throat and in my knees
Feeling just as small as a thistle in a breeze
But the childs imagination carried me along
And saw me through my song
Now Ive just gotten older, Ive just gotten taller
And the little ones call me a grownup
song performed by by Carly Simon
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Knock, Knock
Lord Jesus stood there at my door
And twice He knocked then stayed.
It was my choice, I could ignore
And that's why I delayed.
He walked away.
I watched Him leave
Then got on with my life,
To sin like others who deceive
And cause all sorts of strife
Lord Jesus stood there at my door
And I watched Him inside.
I knew He knew my every flaw,
Not one could be denied.
I stood my ground, He left again.
I let Him walk away.
I struggled every now and then
With fears of Judgment Day.
My bank account looked mighty fine
As fifteen years passed by.
To think that all that cash was mine.
How come my soul felt dry?
Lord Jesus stood there at my door,
With fear I turned the key.
And simply stared at Christ with awe.
You see, He died for me.
Lord Jesus entered as my friend,
Yet also set me straight.
My useless life came to an end,
God's love to celebrate.
I sighed I'd made Him wait so long.
Those years I can't restore.
I tell you this, you can't go wrong
If you open the door.
poem by Denis Martindale
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Listeners
'Is there anybody there?' said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
'Is there anybody there?' he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller's call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
'Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:—
'Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,' he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.
poem by Walter de la Mare
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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