The Greatest Poem
Good poems don't rhyme
Great poems don't have rhythm
The greatest poem is not one on paper but said out loud
Good poems are about flowers and puppies
Great poems are about peace and happiness
The greatest poems are about change
What should change.
how it should change.
And who should change.
Most of all the greatest poem is not one about the life you wanted to live
But the one you are living.
poem by Getasew Shumet
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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.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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These Are The Poems That Only I Am
THESE ARE THE POEMS THAT ONLY I AM
These are the poems that only I am
They are not the greatest poems
But they are the poems that only I am
I would have them be more than they are
But they are not-
They are what I have
What I can give
Not the best
Not the greatest
Not the ones which will give greatest delight and greatest insight and greatest beauty and greatest- anything
They are what I am -
How modest of me to be so disappointed with what I am
And all I am not.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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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.
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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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 Wanted My Poem To Be A Real Poem
I WANTED MY POEM TO BE A REAL POEM
I wanted my poem to be a real poem-
I have read and studied and memorized
So many real poems-
I wanted my poem to be one of them
Which others would read and feel and memorize
And make their own –
We want and we want and we want
And who are we with all our wanting?
Who am I with all my wanting?
One more dreamer
One more ambitious person
One more lover of poems
One more writer of poems
One more wanter of real poems
Who writes this poem
For others
who dream like me
of writing real poems.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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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.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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An Evening Poem
AN EVENING POEM
An evening poem
Waits for deeper darkness
A night poem knows blackness
As home.
A morning poem is light
An afternoon poem is thick with heat.
All times have a poem
And all seasons poems also
All lives are poems
And all stories also.
We all are and all know poems
Poems pervade us
And the universe.
It is night now
But when the morning comes
Its poem will overshadow now.
What a brave new world it is
With so many poems in it
And what a life-
With such deep sadness
Waiting forever to be unexpressed.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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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.
poem by Mahfooz Ali
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There Is No Poem For Me Today
THERE IS NO POEM FOR ME TODAY
There is no poem for me today
There is no poem of yesterday
The poems have gone
And far away
There is no poem
For another day.
There never will be another poem
Poems are gone
Poems are stone.
All the words I will ever write
Are not enough
For a Poem of Life.
The Poems are not
They will never be
I am not a Poem
Nor Poetry.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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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.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Sadness Of Life Is Not Its Only Poem
THE SADNESS OF LIFE IS NOT ITS ONLY POEM
The sadness of life is not its only poem-
There are other poems-
Poems of love and happiness-
Poems of laughter-
Poems of being with those one loves-
The sadness of life is not its only poem-
Life has many poems-
Happy ones, also.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Few Poems Are Remembered
FEW POEMS ARE REMEMBERED
Few poems are remembered -
Few poems are ever really known-
Few poems are chosen -
Few poems make us want to return to them again and again-
Out of thousands written every day
Perhaps one poem in a decade
Perhaps less.
This is not the poem.
One can write a lifetime
Without ever writing one such poem.
Most of us never write the poem
And most of us are not remembered either.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Oh The Poems
OH THE POEMS AND THE POEMS AND THE POEMS
Oh the poems and the poems and the poems
Oh the love of Literature
Oh all that stuff
I have given my life to-
Words and meanings and feelings
Pages and pages and pages –
What it is all this literary life for?
When out the window out the door
With our eyes we see in an instant other worlds other dreams?
I don’t know and I will never know
And Literature is certainly far more than I can say it is-
Oh the poems and this poem and this day turning grey
And all my life old and old and more old and more old-
Oh why oh why oh why
And always back to God
My last rescue and refuge and escape
I who have read so much Great Literature
And can only write this-
Oh the why and the oh oh oh and the words
And the whole world of Literature
I would belong to and do not.
Oh the words oh the world oh the Literature
Oh God help me please can’t you please help me a little or not?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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A Quiet Rap for Poetry Teachers
Words, they ‘mean’ – just, what they do;
and a poem means – just what it does;
if it doesn’t do a single thing for you –
that’s it, for now; let’s cut the fuzz…
it may be called ‘the greatest’ poem;
it may be utterly true;
but if it doesn’t do one little thing for you -
just put it aside for another time;
and let's all rap'n'clap this memorable rhyme:
'poems ‘ mean’ – simply – what they DO…
(1,2,3, and...) ...for ME..(5,6..) ......for YOU! '....
and that’s the end of my poetic beef –
I hope you find that some relief..
so rap it with me, all of you:
“ POEMS MEAN – JUST WHAT THEY DO! ! “
poem by Michael Shepherd
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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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The Poem Of Shabbat Morning Is Gone
THE POEM OF SHABBAT MORNING IS GONE
The poem of Shabbat morning is gone-
Forgotten forever
As if it never was.
It came to me
And I could not write it down
And now it is gone.
The world is filled with poems which are lost
And never written down
Great works and great mysteries
Never to really be.
In all those billions of unrecorded lives
That went before us on this earth
There were many many poems lost.
I write this down now
as compensation-
How many poorer poems
have replaced
the true poems
that were once
and never are to be?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Christina Sunrise
Christina means the follower of Christ,
I write poems admiring him and his life.
Now I believe we are all change agents,
I write poems that rant with tangents.
Born in the spring on April eighteenth,
I defend the underdog to the nine degree.
I even wrote a Peeve poem comparing
someone's actions to a dog's flea.
Being 4th generation Native American,
I dance to "Cherokee Nation Will Return" again and again.
Now I write poems to bring awareness and change,
to help people see another standpoint that's not the same.
The name Sunrise is Zaria in Slavic meaning Morning Star,
I write a poem to worship our Sun on Earth from a far.
I just used to live on the street named Sunrise,
middle name Christina names came together just fine.
poem by Christina Sunrise
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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
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I Am Tired Of The Word 'Poem
I AM TIRED OF THE WORD ‘POEM’
I am tired of the word ‘poem’
‘Poem’ ‘poem’ ‘poem’ ‘poem and ‘poem’ again
Weren’t there stars before there were poems?
And won’t there be light somewhere else
when no one has words to say?
And in all the great Silence before and ever after
won’t there be the being of something real however unsaid and unknown?
And won’t ‘Poem’ and ‘poems’ too like all of us
Cease one day to be and never again know that they are?
All the immortals are mortal and their poems too
Silence before and Silence after
And no words forevermore.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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