Poems that I love

At the Top of the Food Chain but the Bottom of the Line by Judith Pordon I am an American. I rush to be before the bullet, as I push air out of my way. I snap commands, advice without request, involuntarily. I wait only briefly for anything. I comb my hair without looking, as fast as possible, then can’t understand why my strands are haphazard. I brush past, my goal in sight, but you, who are you? I am an averter. My eyes have never touched anyone. I will rush to my grave and even in the tomb will be pissed, for everything I didn’t get to finish. I am an American. I pledge allegiance to the clock, to productivity, to the bottom line.

by Alice Oswald From time to time our love is like a sail and when the sail begins to alternate from tack to tack, it’s like a swallowtail and when the swallow flies it’s like a coat; and if the coat is yours, it has a tear like a wide mouth and when the mouth begins to draw the wind, it’s like a trumpeter and when the trumpet blows, it blows like millions.... and this, my love, when millions come and go beyond the need of us, is like a trick; and when the trick begins, it’s like a toe tip-toeing on a rope, which is like luck; and when the luck begins, it’s like a wedding, which is like love, which is like everything.

This poem was found written on a paper bag by Richard Brautigan in a Laundromat in San Francisco. The author is un known. By accident, you put Your money in my Machine (#4) By accident, I put My money in another Machine (#6) On purpose, I put Your clothes in the Empty machine full Of water and no Clothes It was lonely.

by Lisel Mueller (my mother used to ask me if I, tucked away in San Francisco, ever missed a New England winter. Yes, sometimes, Mother, even out of season). Telephone poles relax their spines, sidewalks go under. The nightly groans of aging porches are put to sleep. Mercy sponges the lips of stairs. While we talk in the old concepts- time that was, and things that are- snow has leveled the stumps of the past and the earth has a new language. It's like the scene in which the girl moves toward the hero who has not yet said, "Come here." Come here, then. Every ditch has been exalted. We are covered with stars. Feel how light they are, our lives.

by Thomas Traherne (1636-1674) You never know the world aright till the Sea floweth in your Veins, till you are Clothed with the Heavens, and Crowned with the Stars; And perceive yourself to be the Sole Heir of the Whole World; And more then so, because Men are in it who are every one Sole Heirs, as well as you. Till you are intimately Acquainted with that Shady Nothing out of which this World was made; Till your spirit filleth the whole World and the Stars are your Jewels Till you love Men so as to Desire their Happiness with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own. from Centuries of Meditation

by Grace Paley ( she died yesterday, August 23, 2007 ) Here I am in the garden laughing an old woman with heavy breasts and a nicely mapped face how did this happen well that's who I wanted to be at last a woman in the old style sitting stout thighs apart under a big skirt grandchild sliding on off my lap a pleasant summer perspiration that's my old man across the yard he's talking to the meter reader he's telling him the world's sad story how electricity is oil or uranium and so forth I tell my grandson run over to your grandpa ask him to sit beside me for a minute I am suddenly exhausted by my desire to kiss his sweet explaining lips.

by Denise Levertov Days pass when I forget the mystery. Problems insoluble and problems offering their own ignored solutions jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing their colored clothes, cap and bells. And then once more the quiet mystery is present to me, the throng’s clamor recedes: the mystery that there is anything, anything at all, let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything, rather than void: and that, O Lord, Creator, Hallowed One, You still, hour by hour sustain it. from Sands of the Well (1996)