Professor in the Mirror
Two pupils you know
watch you. They see your Civil War
in your homespun suit,
the threads of your mother's
makeshift mind
embroidered on your bosom.
You are ready to leave
the fallen apples,
your father's broken ladder
behind in the backyard.
How the branches become elegy!
See them reach down to his sleep
in the cool thin grass?
Professor of the dead,
you tighten your collar
with the words of an evening sermon,
its smallest stars burning
your right palm.
poem by Marina Gipps
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Related quotes
A Narrative
Every new narrative has a new rhythm
A prologue. A body. And an end.
From the wax candles,
Those are ever ready to melt,
Flames rise to reach nothingness.
That space which is as hollow as mind itself.
On moonless nights like these,
I miss you the most. And on other days,
I miss you even more… Yet I wouldn’t have
You for the world at stake.
How can a leaf drift so far away?
How can the autumn theft desire such a heavy pay?
This isn’t poetry of despair.
Neither is it an ode to you,
It’s a celebration of the dewy
Residue that every tie leaves behind,
How can it still accumulate?
How can it still haunt, even the most draught-afflicted?
The threads char away.
Some fume stays behind doing
Rounds of cloistered cages called the soul.
It’s as lasting as fallen dew, broken branches
Or torn off relationships.
poem by Torsa Ghosal
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My father was a professor of civil engineering at MIT, and my mother taught high school English.
quote by Eric Allin Cornell
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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After Apple Picking
My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still.
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples; I am drowsing off.
I cannot shake the shimmer from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the water-trough,
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and reappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
And I keep hearing from the cellar-bin
That rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking; I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall,
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised, or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.
poem by Robert Frost
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The Harvest Moon
Drinking the dripping light
Of the Harvest Moon,
I lie on my back, only
The sound of some crickets
Is trembling around.
The stillness to me is now a boon!
The wet grass land calms
My feverish head.
The cool air blows and I
Remain as a person dead.
Insects roam beside my body though
I do not leave them away!
This is the evening I want, I know
Every time, to be alone, alone....
No one with me on this special day,
When the evening will embrace night,
The moonlight will focus on me.
I shall bathe with his color bright
The green darkness will hug me soon!
No human eye can watch my love in the lea,
With the Evening harvest moon...
poem by Nilakshi Das
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How Mother Looked
You want to look how Mother looked.
Makeup she used to use lies on her
Dressing table in the room father has
Had locked up. You have secreted the
Key and unlocked and closing the door,
Are sitting facing your image in the mirror’s
Glass you’ve propped against a chair. You
Do not have your mother’s hair. You have
Her eyes, Father said, although he says it
Less now since her death, as if stealing
From the dead. You want to transform
Yourself into her; be the woman she was;
Have her beauty; have her smile; her gentle
Manner. Cancer took her like thief at night;
Reduced her to a bag of bones and hanging
Skin, pale and thin. Forget that image, Father
Chides, cast it away, lock behind the mind’s
Dark doors. You want to look how Mother
Looked before her sad demise, before cold
Cancer’s deceit and lies. Still a child, Father
Says, you have all your life to live; leave your
Grief behind, but you want to be as Mother
Was, like the coloured picture in your mind.
poem by Terry Collett
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Lullaby
DAY has fled to the west afar,
Where no shadows or sorrows are;
O'er earth's radiant western rim
God has gathered the day to him.
Hush! the river of night is here,
Flowing silently, cool and clear,
With its mystical thoughts that throng
And its silences deep as song.
Babe of my bosom, sleep;
Tender, sweet blossom, sleep!
Hearts may ache
While the long hours go creeping;
Hearts may break
While my baby is sleeping;
Never wake,
Though thy mother is weeping;
Babe of my bosom, sleep!
Sleep! the silence is all around,
Save the sighings that are not sound,
Where the wind in the branches weaves
Mystic melodies through the leaves;
Or the far-away murmurings
Like the stir of an angel's wings.
Only night is about us now—
Child, the earth is as tired as thou.
Babe of my bosom, sleep;
Tender, sweet blossom, sleep!
Hearts may ache
While the long hours go creeping,
Hearts may break
While my baby is sleeping:
Never wake.
Though thy mother is weeping;
Babe of my bosom, sleep!
poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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Backyard Brawl
Got a cut on my thigh, got a nail in my eye
And I'm bleedin' all over the wall
Got a barbed wire bat and a dude on the mat
Ain't getting up soon at all
Got a head full of rage and a belly full of hate
I'm the neighborhood legend that just can't wait
For the backyard brawl
Backyard brawl
Another backyard brawl
Backyard brawl
Another backyard brawl
Backyard brawl
Another backyard brawl
Don't matter who you are, don't matter what color
Brown or white'll do
But if you're yellow you'll be covered in red
A whole lotta black and blue
Jump off the trailer in a pile full o' guys
Scratching and kicking and pulverized
For the backyard brawl
Backyard brawl
Another backyard brawl
Backyard brawl
Another backyard brawl
Backyard brawl
Another backyard brawl
Only got six teeth but three of those
Are sharp enough to bite off your nose
At the backyard brawl
Backyard brawl
Another backyard brawl
Backyard brawl
Another backyard brawl
Backyard brawl
Another backyard brawl
Backyard brawl
Another backyard brawl
Backyard brawl
Another backyard brawl
Backyard brawl
Another backyard brawl
Backyard brawl
Another backyard brawl
Backyard brawl
[Spoken:]
You think you're so tough
You talkin' to me?
You're mine
Come on, let's go
Come on stitches...
song performed by by Alice Cooper
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Rainy day...
Rainy day
Cool evening
Porch sitting
Unusual for mid August.
Where is the usual summer evening traffic?
My thoughts drift
into my childhood past.
They come up blank
and I simply do not recall
what I did on summer evenings like this.
I just remember –
the smell of freshly cut grass
the catching of lightening bugs
devouring Good Humor ice cream
friends trying to invite themselves
into my backyard pool
playing a game called “Murder In The Dark”
in the backyard of the house across the street
when the sun went down.
I wonder
what summer evening games
the kids in my old neighborhood play now.
I wonder where
the kids I played with are now.
Should I visit the old neighborhood,
will I find our childhood spirits
still running around the streets?
Cathedral Wall
Curl up tight into a ball
Curl my body against the soil
Staring up here
At the cathedral wall
I will sleep tonight
Be a baby
Forget it all
Be a baby
Watch the quiet stones
Massive friend
Cathedral wall
I will sleep tonight
A mother to the living
A mother to the dead
Silent as the moonlight
I come to lay my head
And I won't know you
Anymore
The peckish evening rolls once more
Into the ravenous night
Of hunger pains
That keep our troubled souls awake
We are forbidden to explain
A mother to the living
A mother to the dead
My ghost will drink the moonlight
Magic stones
My heart and bones
And I won't know you
Anymore
She's cold
She knows me
Cathedral wall
She's cold
She shows
I borrow
Keep away
Keep you away my love, my love
And pray I might sleep tonight
The violence of my heartbeat
The violence of the blood
I will sleep with the cathedral
And, one day, you'll give up
And I will love you
But I won't know you
Anymore
My frenzied and exhausted mind
Will somehow find a way
To leave you for a time
Condemned to lieing
And lying awake
[These chains are all your own
song performed by by Marillion
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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When I Speak To The Flowers
When I speak to the flowers in my backyard
When I speak to the flowers in my backyard
When I speak to the flowers in my backyard
They tell me to leave you, leave you behind
They tell my to leave you, just get you out of my mind.
They tell me to leave you, leave you behind
Ow, forget all the good times, that are making me blind.
I know you run around and youll never settle down
And I should quit while Im still on top
But when you hold me baby in your lovin arms
I could love you forever baby, but
When I speak to the flowers in my backyard
When I speak to the flowers in my backyard
When I speak to the flowers in my backyard
They tell me to leave you, leave you behind
They tell my to leave you, just get you out of my mind.
They tell me to leave you, just leave you behind
Ow, forget all the good times, that are making me blind.
song performed by by Cat Stevens
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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My Parents
Oh my mother Oh my father
Oh my mother Oh my father
Where are you where are you wher are you?
Ilove you i love you
I looking for you
to talk about my heart
which still ill
untill i will see you
Oh my mother Oh my father
Oh my mother Oh my father
Where are you where are you wher are you?
I love you i love you
You are the third one
In my small heart
After ALLAH and
And my prophet MOHAMED
Oh my mother Oh my father
Oh my mother Oh my father
Where are you where are you wher are you?
I love you i love you
Oh ALLAH is ordering us
Not to make them angry
Never to tell them
the smallest word ouufff
Oh my mother Oh my father
Oh my mother Oh my father
Where are you where are you wher are you?
I love you i love you
Oh ALLAH loves who
Makes his parents happy
And forgives those
Who have a lot of mistakes
Oh my mother Oh my father
Oh my mother Oh my father
Where are you where are you wher are you?
Ilove you i love you
Oh ALLAH enter me
To the higher Firdaous
With my parents and
every single MUSLIM
Oh my mother Oh my father
Oh my mother Oh my father
Where are you where are you wher are you?
I love you i love you
poem by Abderaouf Laoud
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I am' poem
I am the dog bound by a collar
I wonder what is beyond this wooden fence
I hear the sound of cars in the distance
I see, through the cracks, people passing
I want to be free from this collar bound by chains
I am the dog bound by a collar
I pretend to be beyond the fence
I feel the grass between my paws
I touch the dirt beneith the grass
I worry of what will become of me
I cry in worry on a moonlit night
I am the dog bound be a collar
I understand the life of a dog
I say no to the life
I dream about leaving this yard
I try to leave, but fail
I hope that I, to, can be free from these chains
I am the dog bound by a collar.
(Please comment, ty)
poem by Dylan Griffin
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Fallen, Empty, And Broken
fallen soldier
fallen sky
fallen angel
from on high
fallen heartache
fallen soul
fallen man
losing control
empty bed
empty arms
empty dreams
empty heart
empty wallet
empty hands
cant take nothin'
from an empty man
broken promises
broken vows
broken spirit
wont allow
broken fences
broken lives
broken tomorrows
broken nights
fallen, empty, and broken
every road is the same
bent, bruised, and shaken
still numb from the pain
now you dont answer
when i call out your name
fallen, empty, and broken
walking in the rain...
fallen, empty, and broken...
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Dead Stars
dead stars
dead stars
do not shine
they are dead
and the twinklings are
gone
dead stars
all dead
falling to the sea
the moon grieves
stars are
moon's princesses
her diamonds
on her motherly bosom
dead stars
fall to the sea
they refuse
to die
they now live in the sea as starfishes having fallen from the skies
one dark, lonely, evening
of my life
seastars, name them sweetly
but starfishes to the most common fishermen here who make love
to the stinky fish vendors
for once tonight
the moon spreads to a certain fulness of emptiness
trying to hold
seastars
(they are called starfishes by children who smell salt
and rotten sea urchins chasing hemit crabs on the shore
they are burned by the sun
but they already know how to keep themselves safe
they know how to feed themselves
with squids those that sparkle at night in the shallow parts
of the sea)
trying to kiss
them
in fact,
yes the starfishes, all they have are memories of the stars
and they now hide
among the corals and the electric eels
regrets and remorse are always late and they always murmur it to
the oceanfloors
after their fall and no one wants to hear
everyone is busy feeding and escaping away from one another
here in the deeper part of the marine blue seas...
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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It takes three to make a family
(The Mistress or mother)
My son was a gift,
But his father didn't think so,
He left me alone,
With his son I mind you,
I was just a girl,
And he a man,
He did not care,
He left me bowed eyes and broken,
A Lord was he and I Mistress was I,
We were in two different worlds,
Seperated by our familes,
But our son not like us,
A son forced to see his parents like this,
I can still do te best for him,
His father is a monster not a man,
I am scared for my son,
What of his life?
No, I must do my best for him,
If I don't I'll let both of us down,
Years have past and now my son is a man,
I'm dying slowly,
I don't want my son to worry,
I know that I'm on my deathbed,
And I'm as king forJesus.
(Lord or father)
I did not leave her,
She left me,
I couldn't find her,
I wanted my son,
She didn't give him,
Now she's gone and my son with me,
My son's mother was my late wife,
I wanted them both,
But she sought me to be a demon,
Lies upon lies,
I was persuaded from my mother,
My wife listened to our converesation,
Many years later my son is married,
Now I'm going to meet my wife,
Together in heaven,
We have all eternity,
Jesus please keep our son.
(Son)
I am a man who loves,
Mom and dad didn't know,
I am the birth of their future,
They died without knowing me,
I am their son,
But all their time was fighting,
Mentally and emotional,
I spent my childhood afraid of them,
On a nevering chase against time,
My family will teach and give me love,
Years, many, many, years later,
I am a great grandfather,
Now and finally I am on my deathbed,
And I'm happy,
A tear has fallen out my eye,
I am now ready to reunite with,
Both my mother and father,
Jesus thank you for bringing,
The family together at last.
poem by Qeeony Luv
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Everything Is Broken
Broken lines, broken strings, broken threads, broken springs
Broken idols, broken heads, people sleeping in broken beds
Aint no use jivin, aint no use jokin
Everything is broken
Broken bottles, broken plates, broken switches, broken gates
Broken dishes, broken parts, streets are filled with broken hearts
Broken words never meant to be spoken
Everything is broken
Seems like every time you stop and turn around
Someone else has just hit the ground
Broken cutters, broken saws, broken buckles, broken laws
Broken bodies, broken bones, broken voices on broken phones
Take a deep breath, feel like youre chokin
Everything is broken
Every time you leave and go off some place
Things fall to pieces in my face
Broken hands on broken plows, broken treaties, broken vows
Broken pipes, broken tools, people bending broken rules
Hound dog howlin, bullfrog croakin
Everything is broken
song performed by by Bob Dylan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Dead And Broken
Too many things I've never spoken
I'm not feeling fine
I never told you what to do
I never made you a promise that you could hold me to
That'll be the day you see me crying
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
How many different faces can you show me?
How many times can you be right?
Another world of fantasy
Another reason for dramatizing everything
Taking it all in just one more time
I'm dying
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
Sorry to see that you're underestimated lately
I'd rather be dead and broken than living in your grace
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
Everyday, I still say you're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
You're dead and broken
song performed by by Godsmack
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Everything Is Broken
Broken lines, broken strings
Broken threads, broken springs,
Broken idols, broken heads,
People sleeping in broken beds.
Aint no use jiving,
Aint no use joking,
Everything is broken.
Broken bottles, broken plates,
Broken switches, broken gates,
Broken dishes, broken parts,
Streets are filled with broken hearts.
Broken words never meant to be spoken,
Everything is broken.
Seems like every time you stop and turn around
Something else just hit the ground
Broken cutters, broken saws,
Broken buckles, broken laws,
Broken bodies, broken bones,
Broken voices on broken phones
Take a deep breath, feel like youre chokin,
Everything is broken.
Every time you leave and go off someplace
Thangs fall to pieces in my face
Broken hands on broken ploughs,
Broken treaties, broken vows,
Broken pipes, broken tools,
People bending broken rules.
Hound dog howling, bull frog croaking,
Everything is broken.
song performed by by Kenny Wayne Shepherd
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Man in hysterics
Poor Mom bought for him,
he has sold all to a second hand book-shop.
Algebra, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Zoology,
McMilan's World Atlas and et cetera.,
He hurried to a Pub for a tranquilizer.
On his way he memorized the gypsy palm reader
who was at the book-maker's stall.
One day read his palm and told
'definitely you will be a professor in a college'.
After a few gulps, while he was returning home
passing the university,
all of a sudden shouted in the public
'where is the professor?
Oh! my poor mom's professor'.
to my friend Max Reif.
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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The Palm-Tree
Is it the palm, the cocoa-palm,
On the Indian Sea, by the isles of balm?
Or is it a ship in the breezeless calm?
A ship whose keel is of palm beneath,
Whose ribs of palm have a palm-bark sheath,
And a rudder of palm it steereth with.
Branches of palm are its spars and rails,
Fibres of palm are its woven sails,
And the rope is of palm that idly trails!
What does the good ship bear so well?
The cocoa-nut with its stony shell,
And the milky sap of its inner cell.
What are its jars, so smooth and fine,
But hollowed nuts, filled with oil and wine,
And the cabbage that ripens under the Line?
Who smokes his nargileh, cool and calm?
The master, whose cunning and skill could charm
Cargo and ship from the bounteous palm.
In the cabin he sits on a palm-mat soft,
From a beaker of palm his drink is quaffed,
And a palm-thatch shields from the sun aloft!
His dress is woven of palmy strands,
And he holds a palm-leaf scroll in his hands,
Traced with the Prophet's wise commands!
The turban folded about his head
Was daintily wrought of the palm-leaf braid,
And the fan that cools him of palm was made.
Of threads of palm was the carpet spun
Whereon he kneels when the day is done,
And the foreheads of Islam are bowed as one!
To him the palm is a gift divine,
Wherein all uses of man combine,--
House, and raiment, and food, and wine!
And, in the hour of his great release,
His need of the palm shall only cease
With the shroud wherein he lieth in peace.
'Allah il Allah!' he sings his psalm,
On the Indian Sea, by the isles of balm;
'Thanks to Allah who gives the palm!'
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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