wednesday's poems

words by anne sexton

Be careful of words,
even the miraculous ones.
For the miraculous ones we do our best,
sometimes they swarm like insects
and leave not a sting but a kiss.
They can be good as fingers.
They can be trusty as the rock
you stick your bottom on.
But they can be both daisies and bruises.

Yet I am in love with words.
They are doves falling out of the ceiling.
They are six holy oranges sitting in my lap.
They are the trees, the legs of summer,
and the sun, its passionate face.

Yet often they fail me.
I have so much I want to say,
so many stories, images, proverbs, etc.
But the words aren't good enough,
the wrong ones kiss me.
Sometimes I fly like an eagle
but with the wings of a wren.

But I try to take care
and be gentle to them.
Words and eggs must be handled with care.
Once broken they are impossible
things to repair.

wednesday's poems

here yet be dragons by lucille clifton

so many languages have fallen
off of the edge of the world
into the dragon's mouth.  some

where there be monsters whose teeth
are sharp and sparkle with lost

people.  lost poems.  who
among us can imagine ourselves
unimagined?  who

among us can speak with so fragile
tongue and remain proud?

wednesday's poems

birthday by may swenson

What am I dong here?
What are the waves doing running? -
the grass doing growing?
What is the worm doing making its hole? -
the sun glowing? - the stone
sitting unmoving.  Remove
the stone: A shadow is missing.

The moon is making its circle.
A moth is emerging.
A mountain is shifting.  A forest
is burning.  A snake
 is leaving its skin.  A fig tree
is hearing.  What am I doing here -
the waves running and hissing?

Dawn is doing its breaking.
The grass is growing.
A buttercup fills with light.
What am I doing?  What am I making?
What is the stone doing?  Making
its shadow.  The worm is making its hole.

wednesday's poems

here are some knitting poems (haikus?  kinda...) that i found

Knitting 

by Theresa Ann Moore

Knitting needles sing

Connecting soft looping notes

Compose sweater song

Sitting and Knitting

by Pisapia Gina

Sitting and knitting

allured by its yellow hue

bees sit beside me.

wednesday's poems

Another Westminster Bridge 

by Alice Oswald

go and glimpse the lovely inattentive water

discarding the gaze of many a bored street walker

where the weather trespasses into strip-lit offices

through tiny windows into tiny thoughts and authorities

and the soft beseeching tapping of typewriters

take hold of a breath-width instant, stare

at water which is already elsewhere

in a scrapwork of flashes and glittery flutters

and regular waves of apparently motionless motion

under the teetering structures of administration

where a million shut-away eyes glance once

restlessly at the river’s ruts and glints

count five, then wander swiftly

away over the stone wing-bone of the city.

*

wednesday's poems

Ode to things, by Pablo Neruda

I have a crazy,

crazy love of things.

I like pliers,

and scissors. 

I love

cups, 

rings,

and bowls – 

not to speak, or course,

of hats.

I love

all things,

not just

the grandest, 

also

the 

infinite-

ly

small – 

thimbles, 

spurs,

plates,

and flower vases.

Oh yes,

the planet 

is sublime!

It’s full of pipes

weaving

hand-held

through tobacco smoke,

and keys

and salt shakers – 

everything,

I mean,

that is made 

by the hand of man, every little thing: 

shapely shoes,

and fabric,

and each new

bloodless birth

of gold,

eyeglasses

carpenter’s nails,

brushes,

clocks, compasses, 

coins, and the so-soft

softness of chairs.

Mankind has 

built 

oh so many

perfect

things!

Built them of wool

and of wood, 

of glass and

of rope: 

remarkable

tables, 

ships, and stairways.

I love

all

things,

not because they are

passionate

or sweet-smelling

but because,

I don’t know,

because

this ocean is yours,

and mine; 

these buttons

and wheels

and little

forgotten

treasures,

fans upon

whose feathers

love has scattered

its blossoms,

glasses, knives and

scissors – 

all bear

the trace

of someone’s fingers

on their handle or surface,

the trace of a distant hand

lost

in the depths of forgetfulness.

I pause in houses,

streets and 

elevators

touching things,

identifying objects

that I secretly covet; 

this one because it rings,

that one because 

it’s as soft

as the softness of a woman’s hip,

that one there for its deep-sea color,

and that one for its velvet feel.

O irrevocable 

river

of things: 

no one can say

that I loved

only

fish, 

or the plants of the jungle and the field, 

that I loved

only

those things that leap and climb, desire, and survive.

It’s not true: 

many things conspired

to tell me the whole story.

Not only did they touch me,

or my hand touched them: 

they were

so close

that they were a part

of my being,

they were so alive with me

that they lived half my life

and will die half my death.

wednesday's poems

Snow by Louis Macneice

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes -
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's
hands -
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.

wednesday's poems

i heart kay ryan.

The Well or the Cup
by Kay Ryan

How can
you tell
at the start
what you
can give away
and what
you must hold
to your heart
What is the well
and what is
a cup. Some
people get
drunk up.

wednesday's poems

Stardust
by Kay Ryan

Stardust is
the hardest thing
to hold out for.
You must
make of yourself
a perfect plane--
something still
upon which
something settles--
something like
sugar grains on
something like
metal, but with
none of the chill.
It's hard to explain

wednesday's poems

this is one of my favorite poems, it is by ee cummings:

i thank You God for most his amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

wednesday's poems

WAGE PEACE
by Mary Oliver

Wage peace with your breath.
Breathe in firemen and rubble, breathe out whole
buildings and flocks
of red wing blackbirds. Breathe in terrorists and
breathe out sleeping
children and freshly mown fields.
Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.
Breathe in the fallen and breathe out lifelong
friendships intact.
Wage peace with your listening: hearing sirens, pray
loud.
Remember your tools: flower seeds, clothespins, clean
rivers.
Make soup.
Play music, learn the word for thank you in three
languages.
Learn to knit, and make a hat.
Think of chaos as dancing raspberries,
imagine grief as the outbreath of beauty or the
gesture of fish.
Swim for the other side.
Wage peace.
Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious.
Have a cup of tea and rejoice.
Act as if armistice has already arrived.
Don't wait another minute.