All Poems
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Dancing on the Grave of a Son of a Bitch
© Diane Wakoski
Foreword to “Dancing on the Grave of a Son of a Bitch”
This poem is more properly a “dance poem” than a song or chant because the element of repetition is created by movements of language rather than duplicating words and sounds. However, it is in the spirit of ritual recitation that I wrote it/ a performance to drive away bad spirits perhaps.
The story behind the poem is this: a man and woman who have been living together for some time separate. Part of the pain of separation involves possessions which they had shared. They both angrily believe they should have what they want. She asks for some possession and he denies her the right to it. She replies that she gave him money for a possession which he has and therefore should have what she wants now. He replies that she has forgotten that for the number of years they lived together he never charged her rent and if he had she would now owe him $7,000.
She is appalled that he equates their history with a sum of money. She is even more furious to realize that this sum of money represents the entire rent on the apartment and implies that he should not have paid anything at all. She is furious. She kills him mentally. Once and for all she decides she is well rid of this man and that she shouldn’t feel sad at their parting. She decides to prove to herself that she’s glad he’s gone from her life. With joy she will dance on all the bad memories of their life together.
Song Of Slaves In The Desert
© John Greenleaf Whittier
WHERE are we going? where are we going,
Where are we going, Rubee?
Lord of peoples, lord of lands,
Look across these shining sands,
An Essay on Criticism: Part 3
© Alexander Pope
Learn then what morals critics ought to show,
For 'tis but half a judge's task, to know.
'Tis not enough, taste, judgment, learning, join;
In all you speak, let truth and candour shine:
That not alone what to your sense is due,
All may allow; but seek your friendship too.
Love
© Pablo Neruda
What's wrong with you? I look at you
and I find nothing in you but two eyes
like all eyes, a mouth
lost among a thousand mouths that I have kissed, more beautiful,
a body just like those that have slipped
beneath my body without leaving any memory.
Delia XXXVII
© Samuel Daniel
When men shall find thy flower, thy glory pass,
And thou, with careful brow sitting alone,
Oh, For a Bowl of Fat Canary
© John Lyly
Oh, for a bowl of fat Canary,
Rich Palermo, sparkling Sherry,
Some nectar else, from Juno’s dairy;
Oh, these draughts would make us merry!
The Sun
© Felicia Dorothea Hemans
The sun comes forth; each mountain height
Glows with a tinge of rosy light,
Done is a Battle
© William Dunbar
Done is a battle on the dragon black,
Our champion Christ confoundit has his force;
Sympathy
© Paul Laurence Dunbar
I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
Sonnet: On seeing Miss Helen Maria Williams weep at a tale of distress
© William Wordsworth
She wept.--Life's purple tide began to flow
In languid streams through every thrilling vein;
Hudibras: Part 3 - Canto III
© Samuel Butler
What made thee, when they all were gone,
And none but thou and I alone,
To act the Devil, and forbear
To rid me of my hellish fear?
“I am happy living simply”
© Marina Tsvetaeva
I am happy living simply:
like a clock, or a calendar.
Worldly pilgrim, thin,
wise—as any creature. To know
The Squatter's Baccy Famine.
© James Brunton Stephens
IN blackest gloom he cursed his lot;
His breath was one long weary sigh;
Insomnia
© Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Thin are the night-skirts left behind
By daybreak hours that onward creep,
In The Churchyard At Cambridge. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The First)
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
In the village churchyard she lies,
Dust is in her beautiful eyes,
No more she breathes, nor feels, nor stirs;
At her feet and at her head
Lies a slave to attend the dead,
But their dust is white as hers.
The Triumph Of Man
© Gilbert Keith Chesterton
I plod and peer amid mean sounds and shapes,
I hunt for dusty gain and dreary praise,
And slowly pass the dismal grinning days,
Monkeying each other like a line of apes.
Sonnets from the Portuguese 35: If I Leave all for thee
© Elizabeth Barrett Browning
If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange
And be all to me? Shall I never miss
