Beside the white chickens

Because poetry is awesome!

[apoemaday]

We Real Cool

by Gwendolyn Brooks

The Pool Players. Seven At The Golden Shovel.

We real cool. We Left school. We

Lurk late. We Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We Die soon.

[literaturewoman]

"Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does."

—Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad

[politicalprof]

Well, you know, some bathroom graffiti offers insight.

[madfishmonger]

Red marker handwriting on a bathroom wall. Text reads:

“Boss made a dollar Granddad made a dime But that was a poem From a simpler time.

Boss made a thousand Gave pa a cent But that penny paid the mortgage Or at least it paid the rent

Now Boss makes a million And gives us jack Smugly blames the workers For the labor that he lacks.”

[a-krogan-skald-and-bearsark]

And the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls.

[willcarloswilliams]

[intactics-deactivated20250505]

do you have the "my, what a cool and lovely autumn poem" perchance

[good-in-space]

Tonight I Can Write The Saddest Lines, Pablo Neruda

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shattered

and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms

I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.

How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.

And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.

The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.

My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.

My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.

We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.

My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.

Her voice. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms

my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer

and these the last verses that I write for her.

[willcarloswilliams]

They've turned the star of David into the new swastika.

They've cut down the olive trees.

In the deafening silence of our nation I thought,

No wonder our last Arabic linguist wants to quit.

Do prayers work anymore?

For they have poured out from my soul.

I don't know who to send them to,

I question if there is a soul.

By the Tigris and Euphrates,

Was the fabled Garden of Eden,

Yet the Golden Gates of Babylon,

Stolen now by a German.

The land once ruled by the Queen of Sheba,

Covers women head to toe.

Do you think of her while you drink coffee,

Do you think of her while you commit crimes.

[willcarloswilliams]

[willcarloswilliams]

[willcarloswilliams]

For Every Woman

By Nancy R. Smith, copyright 1973

For every woman who is tired of acting weak when she knows she is strong, there is a man who is tired of appearing strong when he feels vulnerable.

For every woman who is tired of acting dumb, there is a man who is burdened with the constant expectation of “knowing everything.”

For every woman who is tired of being called “an emotional female,” there is a man who is denied the right to weep and to be gentle.

For every woman who is called unfeminine when she competes, there is a man for whom competition is the only way to prove his masculinity.

For every woman who is tired of being a sex object, there is a man who must worry about his potency.

For every woman who feels “tied down” by her children, there is a man who is denied the full pleasures of shared parenthood.

For every woman who is denied meaningful employment or equal pay, there is a man who must bear full financial responsibility for another human being.

For every woman who was not taught the intricacies of an automobile, there is a man who was not taught the satisfactions of cooking.

For every woman who takes a step toward her own liberation, there is a man who finds the way to freedom has been made a little easier.

[willcarloswilliams]

Ophelia

This world we live in, drives me a little mad.

Sometimes it makes me happy, but more often,

A little sad.

How do I love another,

When my heart fluttered in such a way,

Why do I leave the shadows,

If the sun lost its warm embrace.

Flowers and funerals, gunpowder in my hair,

In this river I drift, drift amongst the lily pads.

[willcarloswilliams]

Worms II

It brings me some joy to uncover,

Signs of decay,

In someone who still look fresh.

Soon you will be stiff,

And grey, and rotting.

Ugly little worms in ugly little you.

[dianmz]

Reddit introduced me to this poem.

[willcarloswilliams]

The Seagull

I wanted to fly, without the fear of falling,

Now a seagull, flapping wings in warning,

Soaring above humanity with pride,

Swoop and snatch, in a frenzied glide.

I was once a lady, with plans and dreams,

But now, as seagull, how bland it seems,

I crave the taste of crispy, golden fries,

And won't be satisfied until I feast on this prize.

My beady eyes scan the crowds below,

And when I spot a chance, I swoop and go,

I steal the fries with ruthless skill,

And then soar high, feeling the thrill.

Some call me a thief, a nuisance in the sky,

But I am just a seagull, reincarnated to fly,

And with each fry I steal, I feel alive,

A new purpose found in this feathered guise.

So let me be, as I ride the sea breeze,

My wings a symbol of freedom, if you please,

For in this life, I've found my bliss,

As an angry fry-stealing seagull, I exist.

[heavensghost]

[willcarloswilliams]

[willcarloswilliams]

The Song of Songs