Poems that I love

BY LOUISE GLÜCK Spiked sun. The Hudson’s Whittled down by ice. I hear the bone dice Of blown gravel clicking. Bone- pale, the recent snow Fastens like fur to the river. Standstill. We were leaving to deliver Christmas presents when the tire blew Last year. Above the dead valves pines pared Down by a storm stood, limbs bared . . . I want you. "Early December in Croton-on-Hudson" from The First Four Books of Poems by Louise Gluck. Copyright © 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1985, 1995 by Louise Glück. Source: The First Four Books of Poems (The Ecco Press, 1995)

  Ken’s verse Issan wove a tale about a secret recipe  For chocolate chip cookies. He would share it if you helped in the kitchen. Of course I helped. We all helped. It was like a promise. Everyone did.  How could you say no to Issan? After we’d put on our aprons After all the ingredients had been found Dry stuff from the pantry Butter from the refrigerator Lots of it Sugar from the top shelf Neat brown bags with chocolate  And chocolate chips Carried in from the back seat of the car The oven was preheating. He was a stickler about the temperature The cookie sheets laid with parchment paper. We each had our bowl and task assigned None was burdensome Though some were more fun than others. When the time came we each took  What we had and Issan directed us Towards a big mixing bowl And we folded them together Not rushed or with a lot of jerky motion Big globs of butter stood out  From bits of Hershey Putting them on the sheet with the correct spacing Because h...

if you’re going to try, go all the way. otherwise, don’t even start. if you’re going to try, go all the way. this could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs and maybe your mind. go all the way. it could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days. it could mean freezing on a park bench. it could mean jail, it could mean derision, mockery, isolation. isolation is the gift, all the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. and you’ll do it despite rejection and the worst odds and it will be better than anything else you can imagine. if you’re going to try, go all the way. there is no other feeling like that. you will be alone with the gods and the nights will flame with fire. do it, do it, do it. do it. all the way all the way. you will ride life straight to perfect laughter, its the only good fight there is. – Charles Bukowski

Sometimes I wish Who I was Was not What I did Did never And was also not But that’s not right To make it disappear I shift the story Slightly skewed The end is wrong It doesn’t fit It cannot ever end at all I craft my tale For a dark winter’s night When nothing’s right That‘s also wrong She says she wishes She was 18 I say 60 We only dream She says  Slight is slight I say  Dark is dark And night is night Neither’s right Who we were Is not who we are Right now Ken Ireland

by Bob Dylan for Rebecca del Rio Sing of the mountains and the deep dark sea Sing of the lakes and the nymphs of the forest Sing your hearts out, all your women of the chorus Sing of honor and fate and glory be Mother of Muses, sing for me Mother of Muses, sing for my heart Sing of a love too soon to depart Sing of the heroes who stood alone Whose names are engraved on tablets of stone Who struggled with pain so the world could go free Mother of Muses, sing for me Sing of Sherman, Montgomery, and Scott And of Zhukov, and Patton, and the battles they fought Who cleared the path for Presley to sing Who carved the path for Martin Luther King Who did what they did and they went on their way Man, I could tell their stories all day By Tony Attwood  I'm falling in love with Calliope She don't belong to anyone, why not give her to me? She's speaking to me, speaking with her eyes I've grown so tired of chasing lies Mother of Muses, wherever you are I've already outlived my l...

This world is no match for your Love Being away from you Is death aiming to take my soul away My heart, so precious I won’t trade for a hundred thousand souls Your one smile, takes it for free Hafiz, it may be that you’ve just poured a toast that will wash love clean of all its pictures. ~ Hafiz

By Peter Steele, S.J. Beaten, still breathing, as awkward as a dog, He swags across the donkey, unaware Of who’s beside them, footsore in the slog Uphill for shelter and a kind of care.   Under the bloody bandages, some oil Soothes where wine has washed away the dirt To leave him clean and mortal. Alien soil, Continuing fear, is mingling hope with hurt.   Downslope, the priest is hustling on his way, Clean as a whistle, and the levite too, Who thought that pausing meant the devil to pay, And all the hours awarded them too few.   By the plodding beast, wordless and out of time, The stranger braces once more for the climb.