"A Dissertation on the task of writing a poem on a candle and an account of some of the difficulties thereto pertaining"

By Douglas Adams, January 1970

I resisted temptation for this declamation
To reach out to literary height
For high aspiration in such an oration
Would seem quite remarkably trite:
So I thought something pithy and succinct and clever
Was exactly the right thing to write.

For nights I sat musing
And musing ... and musing
Whilst burning the midnight oil;
My scratchings seemed futile
My muse seemed quite mute, while
My work proved to be barren toil.

I puzzled and thought and wrestled and fought
'Till my midnight oil was exhausted,
So I furthered my writing by dim candle lighting,
And found, to my joy, this of course did
The trick, for I flowered,
My work - candle-powered –
Was inspired, both witty and slick.

Pithy and polished, my writing demolished
Much paper, as I beguiled
Myself with some punning,
(My word play was stunning,)
I wrote with the wit of a Wilde.

At length it was finished, the candle diminished,
I pondered and let my pride burn
At the great acclamation, the standing ovation
Its first public reading would earn.

But lost in the rapture of anticipation
And thinking how great was my brilliant creation
I quite failed to note as I gazed into space
That incendiary things were about to take place:
That which had ignited my literary passion,
Was about to ignite what my passion had fashion'd.

And - oh! - all was lost in a great conflagration
And I just sat there and said 'Hell and damnation',
For the rest of the night and the following day.
(My muse in the meantime had flitted away
Alarmed, no doubt, at the ornamentation
My language acquired with increased consternation.

So unhaply the fruits of my priceless endeavour
Are lost to the literary world forever.
For now I offer this poem instead,
Which explains in itself why the other's unsaid.


This poem was found and published by The Guardian after the author's death in 2001.

How to Be Happy: Another Memo to Myself

By Stephen Dunn

You start with your own body
then move outward, but not too far.
Never try to please a city, for example.
Nor will the easy intimacy
in small towns ever satisfy that need
you have only whispered in the dark.
A woman is a beginning.
She need not be pretty, but must know
how to make her own ceilings
out of all that is beautiful in her.
Together you must love to exchange
gifts in the night, and agree
on the superfluity of ribbons,
the fine violence of breaking out
of yourselves. No matter,
it's doubtful she will ever be enough for you,
or you for her. You must have friends
of both sexes. When you get together
you must feel everyone has brought
his fierce privacy with him
and is ready to share it. Prepare
yourself though to keep something back,
there's a center in you
you are simply a comedian
without. Beyond this, it's advisable
to have skill. Learn how to make something:
food, a shoe box, a good day.
Remember, finally, there are few pleasures
that aren't as local as your fingertips.
Never go to Europe for a cathedral.
In large groups, create a corner
in the middle of the room.

With Breadcrumbs

By A.J. Huffman

I am planting child-like seeds, tiny
beliefs in escape. Rooted
misunderstanding, alluring
as a cotton candy cottage. I am drawn
foolishly to the proffered sweetness. Choking
on the danger signs and bile-
inducing aftermath.
The oven, my force-fed coffin, is full
and fueled by ash. I search for signs of
what has burned before. Discover
both my trail and hope, consumed.

A.J. Huffman has published six solo chapbooks and one joint chapbook through various small presses. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and the winner of the 2012 Promise of Light Haiku Contest. Her poetry, fiction, and haiku have appeared in hundreds of national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, Bone Orchard, EgoPHobia, Kritya, and Offerta Speciale, in which her work appeared in both English and Italian translation. She is also the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press.

By the way

By C. Dale Young 

You are right to point out that the agapanthus 
is not a lily, especially to one who so loves
precision, but the agapanthus is also called
"Lily of the Nile," which surely could be seen
as justification for calling it a lily
I am sure Cleopatra herself never called
this plant agapanthus. And, well, wouldn't one
want to be more like Cleopatra than like
Theophrastus? The Queen of the Nile
would have likely called it a lily, no?
Yes, yes, words have meaning and have power
and all of that stuff. Yes, yes, I of all people
understand the importance of naming.
But if Cleopatra would have called it a lily . . .
Okay, I will stop. You look great, by the way.
But I just want to point out that the agapanthus
is such an odd plant that even botanists
cannot agree on the number of species in the genus,
some saying six, others as many as ten.
Okay, I swear I'll stop. Seriously. Promise.
The windy night air is cold, and the wings
bound along my spine sweaty and bruised,
the long bandages chafing my armpits. Words
have power, my love. You call this winged thing
an angel, but that is not the word I would use for it.

Purim Greetings

By Simon Jacobson

May you be turned inside out

upside down

and outside in

May your masks be masked

and your inside unmasked

May your countenance (panim) shine from within (panim)

as you meet yourself face to face

May your masquerade no longer be needed

as the shrouds fade away

May your child smile and dance

as the facade is lifted

May you just be

Pi

By Wislawa Szymborska

 The admirable number pi:
three point one four one.
All the following digits are also initial,
five nine two because it never ends.
It can't be comprehended six five three five at a glance.
eight nine by calculation,
seven nine or imagination,
not even three two three eight by wit, that is, by comparison
four six to anything else
two six four three in the world.
The longest snake on earth calls it quits at aboutforty feet.
Likewise, snakes of myth and legend, though they may hold out a bit longer.
The pageant of digits comprising the number pi
doesn't stop at the page's edge.
It goes on across the table, through the air,
over a wall, a leaf, a bird's nest, clouds, straight into the sky,
through all the bottomless, bloated heavens.
Oh how brief -- a mouse tail, a pigtail -- is the tail of a comet!
How feeble the star's ray, bent by bumping up against space!
While here we have two three fifteen three hundred nineteen
my phone number your shirt size the year
nineteen hundred and seventy-three the sixth floor
the number of inhabitants sixty-five cents
hip measurement two fingers a charade, a code
in which we find hail to thee, blithe spirit, bird thou never wert
alongside ladies and gentlemen, no cause for alarm,
as well as heaven and earth shall pass away,
but not the number pi, oh no, nothing doing,
it keeps right on with its rather remarkable five,
its uncommonly fine eight,
its far from final seven,
nudging, as always, a sluggish eternity
to continue.

If in America

By Ed Bok Lee

Hmong Hunter Charged with 6 Murders
Is Said to Be a Shaman —new york times

If a tree falls in a forest,

does it make a sound?

If a rifle fires a shot in the woods,

whose body first hits the ground?

If a group of angry hunters

surrounds, curses at, and accosts you

for wandering onto their land

If you apologize for being lost,

inform you saw no posted signs, swallow

their chinks this and gooks taking over that;

are walking away over mud and fallen leaves when a loud

crack far behind you kicks up black earth

If your father was conscripted to fight

on the side of the United States

for the cia during the war in Vietnam

If he, your mother, you—the oldest son—

and all your younger siblings were later abandoned

in the hills of Laos as targets for genocide by the Viet Cong

If after five years in a Thai refugee camp,

you come to this land as a teen, a casualty

of history and time, then receive three years

of training to become a sharpshooter

in the u.s. military

If you spent your adolescence watching blacks,

Asians, Latinos, and whites watching one

another watch each other for weakness and flaws

If, after this first blast, you wheel

around in a bright orange vest; glimpse

in that split second an angry, possibly

inebriated man lowering or resighting his rifle

If, in that icy moment, you recall

the Native friend you used to collect cans with;

once watched his three-hundred-pound father

unload himself from a Chevy Impala and chase

the boy down University with a ball-peen hammer

If, of your own children, your quietest

son lately lacks the wherewithal at school

to defend himself; and your oldest daughter

has always been for some inexplicable reason

ashamed of you

If hunting for you is not just a sport;

never a time to drink beers

with friends in a cabin, but rather

is a factor in considering your family's winter protein consumption

If you believe in God, but not the good in everyone

If you hate to think about this shit, because

why the fuck is it always on you

to preprove your loyalty and innocence?

If—frightened for your life and

the livelihood of your immediate and extended

family—in that split second, you reel

and train your own gun back at the far face

of that vapory barrel now aiming at your own

If, yes, you are sometimes angry and so look forward

to escaping your truck driver's life on certain

designated dates, on certain designated

lands, not always clearly demarcated, but always clearly stolen

from the ancestors of fat drunk red men

so confused they chase their own firey songs

in the form of their sons

Stolen from generations of skewed black backs,

hunched your whole life on street corners laughing

and picking their bones

Stolen from the paychecks of your brown coworker

social security ghosts

Stolen like your own people

from mountains in one land

only to be resettled and resented here

in projects and tenements

If you barely finished high school, but you know

from all you've ever seen of this system

Might Makes Right,

and excuses, treaties, and cover-ups

appear the only true code inscribed on most white men's souls

If, after such slurs, pushes, and threats in these woods

it is now also on you to assess

if that far rifle still locked on your face

just issued a mistake, a warning

shot, or murderous attempt—

                                    and the answer is:

your military muscle fibers

act

If you then spot three four five six seven? other

hunters now scattering for their atvs

and, of course—if a gook,

don't be a dumb one—

scattering now also for their weapons

If you are alone in this land,

on foot, in miles of coming snow, wind, and branches

and don't even know

in which direction you'd run

If from birth you've seen

what men with guns, knives,

and bombs are capable of doing

for reasons you never wanted to understand

If in this very same county's court of all-white

witnesses, counsel, judge, and jurors

it will forever be your word against theirs

because there was no forensic testimony

over who shot first

If, yes, sometimes you can hear voices,

not because you're insane, but

in your culture

you are a shaman, a spiritual healer,

though in this very different land

of goods and fears, your only true worth

seems to be as a delivery man and soldier

If, upon that first fateful exchange in these woods,

your instinct, pushing pin to

balloon, were to tell you it's now

either you and your fatherless family of fourteen,

or all of them

Would you set your rifle down;

hope the right, the decent,

the fair thing on this buried American soil

will happen?

Or would you stay low,

one knee cold, and do

precisely as your whole life

and history have trained?

And if you did,

would anyone even care

what really happened

that afternoon

eight bodies plummeted

to earth like deer?

Samurai Song

By Robert Pinsky

When I had no roof I made
Audacity my roof. When I had
No supper my eyes dined.

When I had no eyes I listened.
When I had no ears I thought.
When I had no thought I waited.

When I had no father I made
Care my father. When I had
No mother I embraced order.

When I had no friend I made
Quiet my friend. When I had no
Enemy I opposed my body.

When I had no temple I made
My voice my temple. I have
No priest, my tongue is my choir.

When I have no means fortune
Is my means. When I have
Nothing, death will be my fortune.

Need is my tactic, detachment
Is my strategy. When I had
No lover I courted my sleep.

Untitled

By Richard Dawkins 

Darling let us wean a type 

Of mixture of us 2. 

Offer up your genotype & shuffle our codes anew 

Let me extend my phenotype 

Deep inside of you

This poem originally appeared on the author's Twitter feed.  

"For Amiri Baraka"

By Diane di Prima

don' matter was it
yr left foot went bad
or yr right
don' matter yr lungs
or yr heart
don' matter if that
mass
on yr liver was
malignant
or what's been wrong
so long
w/yr kidneys
don't matter
drugs
or herbs
or acupuncture
or why you didn't
go
to those appointments
don't matter how much you drank
or if you drank
don't matter you did or you didn't
take drugs
meaning meds
or take drugs
meaning drugs
what matters now
what matters &
what's gonna matter
a hundred
a thousand years
what matters when
what we wrote
what we thought
is lost
(& don't kid yourself,
Ginsberg
it's all of it
gonna be lost)
what matters:
every place
you read
every line
you wrote
every dog-eared book
or pamphlet
on somebody's shelf
every skinny hopeful kid
you grinned that grin at
while they said
they thought they could write
they thought they could fight
they knew for sure
they could change the world
every human dream
you heard
or inspired
after the book-signing
after the reading
after one more
unspeakable
faculty dinner
after that god-awful flight
& the drive to the school
what matters:
the memory
of the poem
in thousands of minds
that quantum
of energy
passed over
passed
all the way over
to the other
to thousands
of others
what matters
Revolution
what matters
Revelation
what matters
the poem
taking root in
thousands
of minds ...

Our Generation

By  Jordan Nichols

Our generation will be known for nothing
Never will anybody say,
We were the peak of mankind.
That is wrong,
The truth is
Our generation is a failure
Thinking that
We actually succeeded
Is a waste. And we know
Living for money and power
Is the way to go.
Being loving, respectful, and kind
Is a dumb thing to do.
Forgetting about that time
Will not be easy, but we will try.
Changing our world for the better
Is something we never did.
Giving up
Is how we handled our problems.
Working hard
Was a joke.
We knew that
People thought we couldn't come back.
That might be true
Unless we turn things around.

(Read from bottom to top now) 

This poem was originally shared on Twitter by the author's brother.  Jordan Nichols is a 14 year old boy.

Menstruation at Forty

By Anne Sexton

I was thinking of a son.
The womb is not a clock
nor a bell tolling,
but in the eleventh month of its life
I feel the November
of the body as well as of the calendar.
In two days it will be my birthday
and as always the earth is done with its harvest.
This time I hunt for death,
the night I lean toward,
the night I want.
Well then—
speak of it!
It was in the womb all along.

I was thinking of a son ...
You! The never acquired,
the never seeded or unfastened,
you of the genitals I feared,
the stalk and the puppy’s breath.
Will I give you my eyes or his?
Will you be the David or the Susan?
(Those two names I picked and listened for.)
Can you be the man your fathers are—
the leg muscles from Michelangelo,
hands from Yugoslavia
somewhere the peasant, Slavic and determined,
somewhere the survivor bulging with life—
and could it still be possible,
all this with Susan’s eyes?

All this without you—
two days gone in blood.
I myself will die without baptism,
a third daughter they didn’t bother.
My death will come on my name day.
What’s wrong with the name day?
It’s only an angel of the sun.
Woman,
weaving a web over your own,
a thin and tangled poison.
Scorpio,
bad spider—
die!

My death from the wrists,
two name tags,
blood worn like a corsage
to bloom
one on the left and one on the right—
It’s a warm room,
the place of the blood.
Leave the door open on its hinges!

Two days for your death
and two days until mine.

Love! That red disease—
year after year, David, you would make me wild!
David! Susan! David! David!
full and disheveled, hissing into the night,
never growing old,
waiting always for you on the porch ...
year after year,
my carrot, my cabbage,
I would have possessed you before all women,
calling your name,
calling you mine.

Babi Yar

By Yevgeny Yevtushenk

No monument stands over Babi Yar.
A drop sheer as a crude gravestone.
I am afraid.
          Today I am as old
in years as all the Jewish people.
Now I seem to be
                      a Jew.
Here I plod through ancient Egypt.
Here I perish crucified on the cross,
and to this day I bear the scars of nails.
I seem to be
          Dreyfus.
The Philistine
          is both informer and judge.
I am behind bars.
                       Beset on every side.
Hounded,
          spat on,
                       slandered.

Squealing, dainty ladies in flounced Brussels lace
stick their parasols in to my face.
I seem to be then
                        a young boy in Byelostok.
Blood runs, spilling over the floors.
The barroom rabble-rousers
give off a stench of vodka and onion.
A boot kicks m e aside, helpless.
In vain I plead with these pogrom bullies.
While they jeer and shout,
                               'Beat the Yids. Save Russia!'
Some grain-marketer beats up m y mother.
O my Russian people!
                              I know
                                     you
are international to the core.
But those with unclean hands
have often made a jingle of your purest name.
I know the goodness of my land.
How vile these antisemites—
                                      without a qualm
they pompously called themselves
the Union of the Russian People!

I seem to be
                            Anne Frank
transparent
                           as a branch in April.
And I love.
                          And have no need of phrases.
My need
                          is that we gaze into each other.
How little we can see
                                   or smell!
We are denied the leaves,
                                            we are denied the sky.
Yet we can do so much—
                                            tenderly
embrace each other in a darkened room .
They' re coming here?
                                   Be not afraid. Those are the booming
sounds of spring:
                                  spring is coming here.
Come then to me.
                                 Quick, give me your lips.
Are they smashing down the door?
                                           No, it' s the ice breaking . . .
The wild grasses rustle over Babi Yar.
The trees look ominous,
                                 like judges.
Here all things scream silently,
                                           and, baring my head,
slowly I feel myself
                                turning grey.
And I myself
          am one massive, soundless scream
above the thousand thousand buried here.
I am
          each old man

                            here shot dead.
I am 
         every child

                     here shot dead.
Nothing in me 
                   shall ever forget

The 'Internationale,' let it
                                  thunder
when the last antisemite on earth
is buried forever.
In my blood there is no Jewish blood.
In their callous rage, all antisemites

must hate me now as a Jew.

For that reason

I am
                 a true Russian!

Chicago

By Carl Sandburg

Hog Butcher for the World,
    Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
    Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
    Stormy, husky, brawling,
     City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
    Bareheaded,
    Shoveling,
    Wrecking,
     Planning,
    Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people,
         Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

By Rudyard Kipling

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

The Republic of Poetry

By Martín Espada

In the republic of poetry,
a train full of poets
rolls south in the rain
as plum trees rock
and horses kick the air,
and village bands
parade down the aisle
with trumpets, with bowler hats,
followed by the president
of the republic,
shaking every hand.

In the republic of poetry,
monks print verses about the night
on boxes of monastery chocolate,
kitchens in restaurants
use odes for recipes
from eel to artichoke,
and poets eat for free.

In the republic of poetry,
poets read to the baboons
at the zoo, and all the primates,
poets and baboons alike, scream for joy.

In the republic of poetry,
poets rent a helicopter
to bombard the national palace
with poems on bookmarks,
and everyone in the courtyard
rushes to grab a poem
fluttering from the sky,
blinded by weeping.

In the republic of poetry,
the guard at the airport
will not allow you to leave the country
until you declaim a poem for her
and she says Ah! Beautiful.

I'm an Emotional Idiot

By Maggie Estep

I'm an Emotional Idiot
so get away from me.
I mean,
COME HERE.

Wait, no,
that's too close,
give me some space
it's a big country,
there's plenty of room,
don't sit so close to me.

Hey, where are you?
I haven't seen you in days.
Whadya, having an affair?
Who is she?
Come on,
aren't I enough for you?

God,
You're so cold.
I never know what you're thinking.
You're not very affectionate.

I mean,
you're clinging to me,
DON'T TOUCH ME,
what am I, your fucking cat?
Don't rub me like that.

Don't you have anything better to do
than sit there fawning over me?

Don't you have any interests?
Hobbies?
Sailing Fly fishing
Archeology?

There's an archeology expedition leaving tomorrow
why don't you go?
I'll loan you the money,
my money is your money.
my life is your life
my soul is yours
without you I'm nothing.

Move in with me
we'll get a studio apartment together, save on rent,
well, wait, I mean, a one bedroom,
so we don't get in each other's hair or anything
or, well,
maybe a two bedroom
I'll have my own bedroom,
it's nothing personal
I just need to be alone sometimes, you do understand,
don't you?

Hey, why are you acting distant?

Where you goin',
was it something I said?
What
What did I do?

I'm an emotional idiot
so get away from me
I mean,
MARRY ME.


For any audio of this poem click here.

Looking Back in My Eighty-First Year

By Maxine Kumin

How did we get to be old ladies—
my grandmother's job—when we
were the long-leggèd girls?
                     — Hilma Wolitzer

Instead of marrying the day after graduation,
in spite of freezing on my father's arm as
here comes the bride struck up,
saying, I'm not sure I want to do this,

I should have taken that fellowship
to the University of Grenoble to examine
the original manuscript
of Stendhal's unfinished Lucien Leuwen,

I, who had never been west of the Mississippi,
should have crossed the ocean
in third class on the Cunard White Star,
the war just over, the Second World War

when Kilroy was here, that innocent graffito,
two eyes and a nose draped over
a fence line. How could I go?
Passion had locked us together.

Sixty years my lover,
he says he would have waited.
He says he would have sat
where the steamship docked

till the last of the pursers
decamped, and I rushed back
littering the runway with carbon paper . . .
Why didn’t I go? It was fated.

Marriage dizzied us. Hand over hand,
flesh against flesh for the final haul,
we tugged our lifeline thru limestone and sand,
lover and long-leggèd girl

Unraveling

By Dory Manor

How can you sing yourself a lullaby?
How can you believe that you are all alone?
You unravel from your childhood like a thread from a cloak
And nothing in nature can bring sleep to your eyes.

You travel in your soul to Lithuania or Spain
To the north of time and the west of your mind
You build yourself a gondola and row from vein to vein
And nothing in nature can bring sleep to your eyes.

Beneath a white quilt you sense in your head
Your mother bending over you, canopying the bed
And you sing and you hear yourself sing the lullaby
And nothing in nature can bring sleep to your eyes.


Translated from Hebrew by Vivian Eden.

This poem previously appeared in Ha'eretz.

Black Beans

By Sarah Kirsch

In the afternoon I pick up a book
In the afternoon I put a book down
In the afternoon it enters my head there is war
In the afternoon I forget each and every war
In the afternoon I grind coffee
In the afternoon I put the ground coffee
Back together again gorgeous
Black beans
In the afternoon I take off my clothes put them on
Apply make-up first then wash
Sing don't say a thing