Poetry thread!

[XemaSab]

Sandhill People by Carl Sandburg

I TOOK away three pictures.
One was a white gull forming a half-mile arch from the pines toward Waukegan.
One was a whistle in the little sandhills, a bird crying either to the sunset gone or the dusk come.
One was three spotted waterbirds, zigzagging, cutting scrolls and jags, writing a bird Sanscrit of wing points, half over the sand, half over the water, a half-love for the sea, a half-love for the land.

I took away three thoughts.
One was a thing my people call “love,” a shut-in river hunting the sea, breaking white falls between tall clefs of hill country.
One was a thing my people call “silence,” the wind running over the butter faced sand-flowers, running over the sea, and never heard of again.
One was a thing my people call “death,” neither a whistle in the little sandhills, nor a bird Sanscrit of wing points, yet a coat all the stars and seas have worn, yet a face the beach wears between sunset and dusk.

[zingaro]

1. All the Hemispheres by Hafiz

Leave the familiar for a while.
Let your senses and bodies stretch out

Like a welcomed season
Onto the meadows and shores and hills.

Open up to the Roof.
Make a new water-mark on your excitement
And love.

Like a blooming night flower,
Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness
And giving
Upon our intimate assembly.

Change rooms in your mind for a day.

All the hemispheres in existence
Lie beside an equator
In your heart.

Greet Yourself
In your thousand other forms
As you mount the hidden tide and travel
Back home.

All the hemispheres in heaven
Are sitting around a fire
Chatting

While stitching themselves together
Into the Great Circle inside of
You.

[XemaSab]

2. Good times!

:toast:

[AlCzervik]

3. here you go.

"Images by Tyrone Greene"

Dark and lonely on a summer's night.
Kill my landlord. Kill my landlord.
Watchdog barking. Do he bite?
Kill my landlord. Kill my landlord.
Slip in his window. Break his neck.
Then his house I start to wreck.
Got no reason. What the heck?
Kill my landlord. Kill my landlord.
C-I-L-L my land lord!

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

4. One of my father's original works

DREAMS OF BOYHOOD

I’d like to take that magic walk
Back along the Milky Way,
To taste once more the honeycomb
And re-live fond mem’ries of yesterday.

To walk the pungent railroad ties
And feel the hot tars tug on feet,
To plunge in the ol’ swimmin’ hole,
Or pluck the ripen’d berries sweet.

To savor again the ecstasy
Of a can of worms and willow pole,
Or the thrill of feeling the bobber sink
‘Neath the sunlit fishin’ hole.

To walk anew the secret pathway
And reclaim the sense of sheer delight,
Even pay the cost of eager folly
To endure the pesky insect bite.

For the relief of owing not a soul,
Freedom from all care and greed,
And chance to recapture youthful joy
Is truly one’s most urgent need!

Original poetry penned by Clarence W. Hessler
© 2007 Steven A. Hessler
All Rights Reserved