Yard Sale
We are having a yard sale today.
Hold the door open for me, Mother says
As she carries a box out onto the driveway
And the cats scramble out for fresh air
While Father paces out back, scratching his head
And my brothers sit inside, sipping Pepsis
I follow Mother out into the cold
And ask her if she needs help
She smiles and says, Oh Jamie
You were always the one who wanted to help
Then sets the box down before me and asks
Could you make sure we got everything?
Before she runs inside to yell at Father
There are grey clouds in the sky
And I too, am a darker shade of grey
As I begin to sift through my childhood...
The soccer ball my brothers and I lost
Religiously, once, twice, thrice a week
Over the backyard fence and into
The neighbor's yard, where the dog awaits
I ring on Mr. Ryan's doorbell in shame
Like I've just murdered the President
And Puppy covers me with slobber
My corporal punishment, I guess
The old phones we used before the new ones
White and bulky, trailing tangly cables
That I curled around my finger as I
Listened to my grandfather speak to me
Across thousands of miles of water
You don't have to reply, Father says
He can't hear you, his ears are bad
But I yell into the receiver anyway
The vocabulary book Mother made me study
In preparation for standardized testing
For so many hours I could swear I had lost
A part of my soul, memorizing diaphonous
Until it literally lost all its meaning
So I take revenge on her by using big words
She doesn't understand, like fastidious
Mother, why must you be so fastidious?
The cap and gown I wore five years ago
On graduation day, when it rained
Even though Father said it wouldn't
So all his pictures came out bad
And as the sky fell upon our field
We threw our mortarboards up in defiance
Announcing our presence in this world
And at the same time, our weight...
It is starting to rain now.
Hurry Jamie, Mother yells
Bring the box back inside
She holds the door open for me
And I run through as fast as I can
To find that Father is singing
And my brothers are laughing
And Mother is smiling
Some things are not for sale
poem by Derek Ouyang
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Mother; it was all a white lie
How do I look? ’ says mother just before she goes out
I reply ‘wow amazing’ mother smiles
But if only she knew it was a white lie
I would hurt her deep inside
Mother says ‘which dress looks better’
I chose red, although I didn’t like neither
Mother reply’s ‘I’m glad you like it ‘, I reply ‘like it? I love it! ’ Yes I lied I genuinely disliked it!
Mother giggles but what she doesn’t realise it’s apart of my game just not as obvious as a riddle.
Mother is on a diet and works so hard to stick to it
Mother asks me ‘have I reduced weight a little bit? ’
I reply ‘a little bit? ’ you’ve lost so much that you’re starting to look like a stick!
Mother giggles and cuddles me; see this is why I lie because I make her feel so valuable and happy!
When mother was pregnant she looked big as ever! Mother asks’ ‘do I look big? ’ I reply look big? Never! Yes I lied to make her feel better!
I wanted her to feel cool about herself just like the breeze in the Lebanese weather
Although she was awfully big, I made her feel light as a feather!
Father is home late; mother is worried, she asks me if I think he’s ok
I reply ‘of course he is’ she smiles and gives me a kiss
Although I was also afraid and wanted to ask mother the same
I kept her calm by putting on a brave face
Mother says ‘I have a surprise for you in the boot’
I opened it and bless mother; she had bought me new shoes,
Mother says ‘like the shoes? ’ I reply ‘of course I do’ but if only she knew,
I would hurt her in the count of two!
poem by Anna Fawaz
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Mother, Father
Mother, father please explain to me
Why a world so full of mystery
A place so bitter and still so sweet
So beautiful and yet so full of sad, sad...
Mother, father please explain to me
Why forests march to desert speed
While snowcapped mountains melt away
What do we tell our babies, when do we say, oh
Mother, father please explain to me
How a man who rocks his child to sleep
Pulls the trigger on his brothers heart
He digs a hole right to the middle of this storm of hatred
Mother, father please explain to me
How it could be so this world has come to be
A precious balance in between
Such cruelty and such kindness please
Mother, father please explain to me
How this world has come to be
Unequaled in her blessings, oh, I see
Unbridled hatred so extreme, please tell me
Mother, father please explain to me
How this world has come to be so
Twisted between time and dreams
Oh, mother, father please explain to me
Oh, whats all this talk about?
All this talk about it
Spinning down, down, down, down, down
All this talk about
Endless words without
Nothings done
Mother, father do you know
Why one mans belly overflows
Another sleeps in hungers bed
Oh, we trade our world for a piece of bread
Oh mother, father please explain to me
How this rare worlds come to be
A place so full of color yet overflowing
Always in black and white
Drowning in the waters of our...
Mother, father please explain to me
How this world has come to be
While still blessed in all the things we see
Such a sad, sad home for you and me
Come out, and hold,
Come on out you
Come on out you
Come and save yourself
Come on out you
Come on were taking the water
Were taken the water
Were taken the water
But you know
We got the freedom
We got the freedom
Theres no God above
And no hell below
Oh, its here with us
Its up to us
To keep afloat
How this sweet world has come to be
Oh to keep afloat
Mother, father please explain to me
How this rare world has come to be
Oh, let the blue planet
Let the blue planet
Mother, father please explain to me
Mother, father please explain
song performed by by Dave Matthews Band
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Love One Another
Everybody needs a little tenderness
Everybody needs a release
From the cell they lock themselves in
Loves the only peace
Everybody needs
Everybody Cries
Everybody Bleeds
Everybody Dies
Everybody Dreams
Everybody Wakes
Everybody makes mistakes
Love one another
Sisters and brothers
Love one another
Love one another
Father and mother
Love one another
Its easier to walk away when youve
Got a wounded pride
When two people stand together
Thats how they heal inside
Try to understand
Open up your heart
A fist is just a hand
It can come apart
Let go of the past, let go of the fight
Forgiving fills the world with light
Love one another
Sisters and brothers
Love one another
Love one another
Father and mother
Love one another
We were given a world so beautiful
A deep ocean, a blue-blue sky
I know we can make it a better place
If only you and I
Love one another
Sisters and brothers
Love one another
Love one another
Father and mother
Love one another
song performed by by Cher
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Male parental hierarchy.
My parents are two, grandparents four
And great grandparents, eight and so on.
I am known by my father, his father,
And his father and so on by male side.
My mother, her mother and father, their
Mother and father and so on are ignored.
My fathers’ mother and grandfather’s
Mother and so on go to oblivion.
I am known by my father, his father
And his father and so on as a family.
All women from whom I have drawn
Their genes have been shut out.
Parental hierarchy is represented
By male, women dislodged at every stage.
25.08.2009
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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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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Mother In Law
(a. toussaint)
Mother in law, mother in law
Mother in law, mother in law
The worst person I know
Mother in law, mother in law
She worries me so
Mother in law, mother in law
If she leaves us alone
We could have a happy home
Sent from down below
Mother in law, mother in law
Mother in law, mother in law
Satan should be her name
Mother in law, mother in law
To me theyre about the same
Mother in law, mother in law
Everytime I open my mouth
Steps in trying to put me out
How could you stood so low
Mother in law, mother in law
Mother in law, mother in law
Come home with my pay
Mother in law, mother in law
She asks me what I made
Mother in law, mother in law
She thinks her advice is a contribution
If she would leave that would be the solution
Dont come back no more
Mother in law, mother in law
Mother in law, mother in law....
song performed by by Huey Lewis And The News
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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On His Father's Side
On his mother’s side
Born in Bethlehem
On his Father’s side
No one before him
On his mother’s side
Growing and learning
On his Father’s side
All knowledge showing
On his mother’s side
Stuck in one location
On his Father’s side
Present in every nation
On his mother’s side
He was hungry
On his Father’s side
The multitudes he did feed
On his mother’s side
At Calvary he died
On his Father’s side
He was the essence of life
On his mother’s side
Buried like other men
On his Father’s side
He rose again
On his mother’s side
Human and weak
On his Father’s side
The God of eternity.
poem by Joses Tirtabudi
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Random things about my Mother
My mother whose eyes were strained
By a sadness that stained her eyes
With grey and blue hue
My mother who never blew
Out candles on a birthday cake
My mother who never knew
The thrills of flying in an airplane
My mother who forever threw
Her pearls to swine
My mother who knew
No contentment in living
My who mother never lived
To be even seventy two
My mother who it is true
Stopped living long before she died
My mother from whose mouth flew
Words of disappointment and fury
My mother whose lips
Tasted bitter tears
My mother sat impatiently
In sorrow through her years
My mother who like Kunta Kinte
Was tamed by Diabets
My mother who was tamed
By my father
My mother who was captured by my father
My mother who fought with my father
The two them struggling false teeth piercing each others flesh
My mother who my father told to go and cook the mint
My mother who would beat us and cause wounds and bruises to our skin
My mother who love to walk about
My mother who gave a toe
A day away
My mother who kiked with her stump of a leg after she lost her foot
My mother who was a great dresser
My mother who could sing
Sang on the church choir
My mother who would be at the front of the church earliest every Saturday
My mother who insisted I be baptized and save by the holy ghost
My mother had beautiful handwriting
My mother who had nine children for five different men
My mother who tried to settle down with my father
My mother who could never swim
My mother who loved to sing
My mother who would tie us up on leashes and take us for long walks through the town
My mother who sought out hand me-downs – for our clothing
My mother who was active in the Welfare Society at church so she could cream the crop for her family
My mother who instigated many a conflicts with her numerous friend was left with only a few in the end.
My mother whom I so wanted to help evolve
My mother who I helped to live
My mother who I had to let die
My mother who lives in me
poem by Fleurette Elaine Harris
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My Father's Persistence
Was there rain coming down that day?
I really can't remember.
My mother says it was cold and dreary
on that day in December.
Was I welcomed onto this earth
as I took my first breath in?
My father wanted a boy to raise.
Should I have stayed where I had been?
Gradually he accepted a little girl
and held me on his knee.
He played LP records for hours
and I inhaled the harmony.
My mother says he was obsessed with this
and thought I should be left alone.
But his persistence through my first two years
paid off with each new tone.
By age four I was playing the piano
and my father praised God.
My mother was surprised I guess.
But she thought me rather odd.
My happiest childhood memories
was playing whatever I'd heard.
My father was deliriously happy.
My mother thought it absurd.
Most of my youth went so fast.
Most of it I can't remember,
just like the part about rain coming down
on that cold dreary day in December.
But the thing I remember the most now
was my father's pride and joy
that I was born a girl instead of a baby boy.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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Missing Link
A sickly child lie
frail on the sofa in the living room.
A knock on the door,
His mother opened.
The man who entered the child knew it was his father.
Whose child is this?
“It is your youngest son” his mother said.
The children in the street
all had a father; the child had waited for him.
But his father ignored him,
gave chocolate to his sister and brother,
then he drank from a bottle,
his mother threw him out.
Next day asked his mother, ” are you sure he is my father? ”
She slapped her son’s face and cried.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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How Do Prepare For The Coming Famine?
i like the way my father and mother
once lived.
they died with all serenity, and there
was this banquet we tendered, before
each passed away, as though
there is nothing to worry
they danced their days, their entrance
of course was silent, and their exits
a little serene, and then we talk as
though we understand how to live
just like them
there were droughts but father knew
how to store water in the house and
each of us had its own fill of our thirts
there were past hungers but mother
has her own skill of using the knife
in cutting each share each piece to
be nibbled by our mouths
and now, we are left here my brothers
and sisters, warned about an incoming famine
let us remember how it was with father and mother
and grandfather's father:
when life was so simple then
when there was hunger and yet none died of hunger
when there was drought and yet each of us has a glassful of water
when there was crisis, yet each had symbiosis
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Father there you Are(For my dad)
Father it's been a long time,
Since I was baby which I cannot count on my ten fingers,
Cradle my mother's arms,
My eyes closed yet to see my father,
Father running around,
Now I can talk and walk,
Those years later,
Father where are you?
Seeing my mother,
Saying I love thy father,
Which I do,
My love will forever be true,
Now as I grow older once again,
I ask myself,
Father where are you?
Inside my life I see a tunnel,
Running through that tunnel I hear a voice,
Do I go or should I stay?
Trusting my gut I do,
A smile on my face,
Father there you are!
poem by Qeeony Luv
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The Doors Are Locked
From inside of this room
I shall not exit
I have locked the doors
To the world outside.
It does not matter to me what is happening outside, because
Behind these locked doors
Is the world that I live in,
This land of my dreams that
I have fabricated for myself alone.
I recall my father recently reading me a story-
Of a woman who created a world within her dreams-
There she lived and locked herself
Inside of the doors that
Barred her from all that is real.
My father's hope was that
I would find my way out from
This place he called the land of my delusions.
This place which he calls the land of my delusions has become
My only veracity.
From the inside of this room
I shall not exit-it is here I safely converse with
The voices inside of my mind.
The doors to this room are locked, but
I can still hear my mother weeping, and
I hear my mother cry out from the midst of her tears-
What has become of my only child?
Inside of this room, I have constructed a world.
The doors are locked and
I have shut reality out-
The doors to my room are locked and
I have lost the key.
My mother is still weeping as her one and only
Has lost the key that would open the doors
To the world outside-
My mother is sobbing; the key is lost and alas-
Her only child's sanity has also been lost.
poem by Claudia Krizay
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Oh, FATHER! - FEEL MY Untold LOVE! (Part-2)
When I think of all the things you GAVE me:
Your sacrifices in food; love and affection are some to name,
The list goes endless and I fail to count what you gave to me;
With your heart, your mind, your energy and your soul of fame!
Mother, oh mother, I am still your little son!
Father, Oh father, I love thee till I am done!
You burnt yourself like a CANDLE to give me light....
Your deeds are never dull; your love is never pale;
I count endless things you, an endless tale
All these you spent on me throughout the years.
Mother, oh mother, I am still your little son!
Father, Oh father, I love thee till I am done!
Now I am in foreign land tormented like an alien, I'm hurt!
I am sad yet I remember Rudyard Kipling's poem, 'If' –
There a father suggest 180 things to his son; What if?
I am not with you; yet your advices ring in heart!
Mother, oh mother, I am still your little son!
Father, Oh father, I love thee till I am done!
I cherish our relationship forever and a day,
Till earth exists and sun sparkles in every way,
Till Stars twinkle and moon delights I carry your name,
Till death may do us apart yet I carry all the same
Mother, oh mother, I am still your little son!
Father, Oh father, I love thee till I am done!
We are separated by boundaries narrow.....
Yet in my memories, I'm with as your shadow;
I may carry your fortunes for while.....
Yet I carry your hope for a mile;
Mother, oh mother, I am still your little son!
Father, Oh father, I love thee till I am done! ................................................. .......................
A BIG NOTICE BOARD:
*Your attention please: Just take a break! Now READ part 1 to make your reading wholesome. PART 2 of the poem
Oh, FATHER! - FEEL MY Untold LOVE! (Part-1)
poem by Harindhar Reddy
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The family tree
I am known by my father
Though equally owned by mother.
I trace from my father’s father,
And not from father’s mother
Nor my mother’s mother or father.
Has family tree any sense?
19.08.2010
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Mother Once Said...
My mother once said
'Don`t open your mouth before
Elders and those with white hairs'.
My mother also said
'Don`t speak unless asked'.
My mouth asked me once,
'What is my role in your life? '
I said, 'My mother has said nothing about it'.
I added, 'You swallow and eat'.
My mouth has been quiet since.
My friends said, 'Your mother is wise'.
My father said, 'She is my strength'.
I wondered how she could be so great!
Then was born my kid brother with a big mouth.
My mother said to my kid brother too
Not to do those old things
But his mouth spoke everything
Everything that I never dared.
And his mouth swallowed, ate and spoke.
Today my mother is no more
And my father is is weak and worn out.
I still remember my mother`s words.
While my kid brother speaks out his mind
My mouth refuses to speak out its regrets....
poem by M.d Dinesh Nair
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Rednecks unite!
My father is my brother
My sister, with three ears,
Is his significant other.
My sister is my mother
And somehow, also my brother
My father's father am I
The vile thought makes me shudder.
Grandma was a mule,
Grandfather's sperm, she used as fuel
A french aristrocrat,
Made love to my mother, for he prefered his women fat
A letter written for my eyes
Containing news of demine
Said my true mother was some other
And my father, not her brother.
Jubilant and joyous,
My wife is what used to by my sister.. Or brother?
poem by Thy Mother
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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To be fanatic
Mother is a Christian, father, an Islam,
Mother’s mother, a Jain,
Mothers father, a Buddhist,
Father’s mother a Saivite,
Father’s father a Vaishnavite,
And their forefathers none,
Which religion must I be fanatic of?
24.10.2009
[saivites = followers of God Siva;
Vaishnavites = followers of God Krishna]
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Love Story
Partly owned to her house
Wooden white picket fence
Mother waits for father
In a backless dress
Hardly used a diaphram
Put back into the case
A one way trip down memory lane
As she awaits
I dont wanna know
Cheat me
I dont wanna know
Children play in the yard
Mother stares at a wall
Father says hes gonna be back late
So dont wait up
About a quarter to 3
Father stares at a wall
Stained thicker than water
Whos gonna clean it up
song performed by by NOFX
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Hands & Knees
You see me walking away
What more could I say than sorry
I failed by all your complaints
You pushed a life change but its not me
And filthy hands lay apon my chest
Lay upon my sin, but I do it for green
And in your mind you are blind
And your back turn so fine
Where were you when I needed you most
So mother so father
Im on my hands and knees
So mother so father
Im scrounging for whats left of me
My self-indulgence to blame
For all of the shame in the family
You dont know what its like
How I feel how I cry
How I hate the way I hate my life
So mother so father Im on my hands and knees
So mother so father
Im scrounging for whats left of me
Pues madre, y padre
Esta vida no quiero vivir
So mother so father
I dont want to live this way
So mother so father
Im scrounging for whats left of me
So mother so father
I dont want to live this way
So mother so father
Im scrounging for whats left of me
song performed by by Unloco
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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