Poems

As someone who’s only ever written in a free flowing, blog-ish kind of way, or in a structured, organized essay format, I’m still very much lost at how to write poetry. While I figure it out, here’s a collection of the ones I really enjoy from people who actually knew what they were doing… or appeared to, anyway (Emily Dickinson > Walt Whitman, don’t @ me)

1. “Il dort. Quoique le sort fut pour lui bien étrange,
  Il vivait. Il mourut quand il n’eut plus son ange.
  La chose simplement d’elle-même arriva.
  Comme la nuit se fait lorsque le jour s’en va.” – Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
2. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
  Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
  Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
  And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
  Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
  And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
  And every fair from fair sometime declines,
  By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d;
  But thy eternal summer shall not fade
  Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
  Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
  When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
  So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
  So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.“– William Shakespeare, Sonnet XVIII
3. “Let me not to the marriage of true minds
  Admit impediments. Love is not love
  Which alters when it alteration finds,
  Or bends with the remover to remove:
  O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
  That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
  It is the star to every wandering bark,
  Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
  Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
  Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
  Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
  But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
  If this be error and upon me proved,
  I never writ, nor no man ever loved.“– William Shakespeare, Sonnet CXVI
4. “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
  Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
  If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
  If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
  I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
  But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
  And in some perfumes is there more delight
  Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
  I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
  That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
  I grant I never saw a goddess go;
  My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
  And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
  As any she belied with false compare.“– William Shakespeare, Sonnet CXXX
5. “They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
  They may not mean to, but they do.
  They fill you with the faults they had
  And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn
  By fools in old-style hats and coats,
  Who half the time were soppy-stern
  And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man.
  It deepens like a coastal shelf.
  Get out as early as you can,
  And don’t have any kids yourself.”– Philip Larkin, This Be the Verse (seen on A Series of Unfortunate Events, Netflix)
6. “The night has a thousand eyes,
  And the day but one;
  Yet the light of the bright world dies
  With the dying sun. The mind has a thousand eyes,
  And the heart but one:
  Yet the light of a whole life dies
  When love is done.”– Francis William Bourdillon, The Night Has a Thousand Eyes (seen on A Series of Unfortunate Events, Netflix)
7. “When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes
  I all alone beweep my outcast state,
  And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
  And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
  Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
  Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
  Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
  With what I most enjoy contented least;
  Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
  Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
  Like to the lark at break of day arising
  From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
  For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
  That then I scorn to change my state with kings.” – William Shakespeare, Sonnet XXIX
8. “When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
  When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
  
  When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
  
  When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
  
  How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
  
  Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
  
  In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
  
  Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.”– Walt Whitman, When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
9. “I was angry with my friend;
  I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
  
  I was angry with my foe:
  
  I told it not, my wrath did grow.
  
  And I waterd it in fears,
  
  Night & morning with my tears:
  
  And I sunned it with smiles,
  
  And with soft deceitful wiles.
  
  And it grew both day and night.
  
  Till it bore an apple bright.
  
  And my foe beheld it shine,
  
  And he knew that it was mine.
  
  And into my garden stole,
  
  When the night had veild the pole;
  
  In the morning glad I see;
  
  My foe outstretched beneath the tree.”– William Blake, A Poison Tree
10. “Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
  
  Success in Circuit lies
  
  Too bright for our infirm Delight
  
  The Truth’s superb surprise
  
  As Lightning to the Children eased
  
  With explanation kind
  
  The Truth must dazzle gradually
  
  Or every man be blind —”– Emily Dickinson
11. “Because I could not stop for Death –
  
  He kindly stopped for me –
  
  The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
  
  And Immortality.
  
  We slowly drove – He knew no haste
  
  And I had put away
  
  My labor and my leisure too,
  
  For His Civility –
  
  We passed the School, where Children strove
  
  At Recess – in the Ring –
  
  We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –
  
  We passed the Setting Sun –
  
  Or rather – He passed Us –
  
  The Dews drew quivering and Chill –
  
  For only Gossamer, my Gown –
  
  My Tippet – only Tulle –
  
  We paused before a House that seemed
  
  A Swelling of the Ground –
  
  The Roof was scarcely visible –
  
  The Cornice – in the Ground –
  
  Since then – ’tis Centuries – and yet
  
  Feels shorter than the Day
  
  I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
  
  Were toward Eternity –”– Emily Dickinson
12. “Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
  
  Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
  
  Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
  
  Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
  
  Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
  
  Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
  
  The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
  
  Answer.
  
  That you are here—that life exists and identity,
  
  That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”– Walt Whitman, O Me! O Life!
13. “[…] O let America be America again –
  The land that never has been yet
  
  And yet must be – the land where every man is free.
  
  The land that’s mine — the poor man’s, Indians, Negro’s, ME —
  
  Who made America,
  
  Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
  
  Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
  
  Must bring back our mighty dream again.
  
  Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
  
  The steel of freedom does not stain.
  
  From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
  
  We must take back our land again,
  
  America!
  
  O, yes,
  
  I say it plain,
  
  America was never America to me,
  
  And yet I swear this oath —
  
  America will be! […]”- Langston Hughes, Let America be America Again
14. “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
  That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
  And then is heard no more. It is a tale
  Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
  Signifying nothing.”– William Shakespeare, Macbeth
15. “I, too, sing America.
  I am the darker brother.
  
  They send me to eat in the kitchen
  
  When company comes,
  
  But I laugh,
  
  And eat well,
  
  And grow strong.
  
  Tomorrow,
  
  I’ll be at the table
  
  When company comes.
  
  Nobody’ll dare
  
  Say to me,
  
  “Eat in the kitchen,”
  
  Then.
  
  Besides,
  
  They’ll see how beautiful I am
  
  And be ashamed–
  
  I, too, am America.”– Langston Hughes, I, too
16. “For those of us who live at the shoreline
  
  standing upon the constant edges of decision
  
  crucial and alone
  
  for those of us who cannot indulge
  
  the passing dreams of choice
  
  who love in doorways coming and going
  
  in the hours between dawns
  
  looking inward and outward
  
  at once before and after
  
  seeking a now that can breed
  
  futures
  
  like bread in our children’s mouths
  
  so their dreams will not reflect
  
  the death of ours;
  
  For those of us
  
  who were imprinted with fear
  
  like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
  
  learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk
  
  for by this weapon
  
  this illusion of some safety to be found
  
  the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
  
  For all of us
  
  this instant and this triumph
  
  We were never meant to survive.
  
  And when the sun rises we are afraid
  
  it might not remain
  
  when the sun sets we are afraid
  
  it might not rise in the morning
  
  when our stomachs are full we are afraid
  
  of indigestion
  
  when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
  
  we may never eat again
  
  when we are loved we are afraid
  
  love will vanish
  
  when we are alone we are afraid
  
  love will never return
  
  and when we speak we are afraid
  
  our words will not be heard
  
  nor welcomed
  
  but when we are silent
  
  we are still afraid
  
  So it is better to speak
  
  remembering
  
  we were never meant to survive.”– Audre Lorde, A Litany for Survival
17. “We have chosen each other
  
  and the edge of each others battles
  
  the war is the same
  
  if we lose
  
  someday women’s blood will congeal
  
  upon a dead planet
  
  if we win
  
  there is no telling
  
  we seek beyond history
  
  for a new and more possible meeting.”– Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider
18. “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers
  
  That perches in the soul –
  
  And sings the tune without the words –
  
  And never stops – at all –
  
  And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
  
  And sore must be the storm –
  
  That could abash the little Bird –
  
  That kept so many warm –
  
  I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
  
  And on the strangest sea –
  
  Yet – never – in Extremity,
  
  It asked a crumb – of me.”- Emily Dickinson
19. “This is my letter to the World
  
  That never wrote to Me –
  
  The simple News that Nature told –
  
  With tender Majesty
  
  Her Message is committed
  
  To Hands I cannot see –
  
  For love of Her – Sweet – countrymen –
  
  Judge tenderly – of Me.”- Emily Dickinson
20. “Unable to perceive the shape of you,
  
  I find you all around me,
  
  Your presence fills my eyes with your love,
  
  It humbles my heart,
  
  For you are everywhere.”– Rumi
21. “I met a traveler from an antique land,
  Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
  
  Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
  
  Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
  
  And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
  
  Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
  
  Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
  
  The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
  
  And on the pedestal, these words appear:
  
  My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
  
  Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
  
  Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
  
  Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
  
  The lone and level sands stretch far away.”– Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias
22. “Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.”– Max Ehrmann, Desiderata
23. “I keep on dying again.
  Veins collapse, opening like the
  Small fists of sleeping
  Children.
  Memory of old tombs,
  Rotting flesh and worms do
  Not convince me against
  The challenge. The years
  And cold defeat live deep in
  Lines along my face.
  They dull my eyes, yet
  I keep on dying,
  Because I love to live.”– Maya Angelou, The Lesson
24. “I don’t ask the Foreign Legion
  Or anyone to win my freedom
  Or to fight my battle better than I can,
  Though there’s one thing that I cry for
  I believe enough to die for
  That is every man’s responsibility to man.
  I’m afraid they’ll have to prove first
  That they’ll watch the Black man move first
  Then follow him with faith to kingdom come.
  This rocky road is not paved for us,
  So, I’ll believe in Liberals’ aid for us
  When I see a white man load a Black man’s gun.”– Maya Angelou, On Working White Liberals
25. “Her arms semaphore fat triangles,
  Pudgy hands bunched on layered hips
  Where bones idle under years of fatback
  And lima beans.
  Her jowls shiver in accusation
  Of crimes clichéd by
  Repetition. Her children, strangers
  To childhood’s toys, play
  Best the games of darkened doorways,
  Rooftop tag, and know the slick feel of
  Other people’s property.
  
  Too fat to whore,
  Too mad to work,
  Searches her dreams for the
  Lucky sign and walks bare-handed
  Into a den of bureaucrats for
  Her portion.
  ‘They don’t give me welfare.
  I take it.’“- Maya Angelou, Momma Welfare Roll
26. “Byways and Bygone
  And lone nights long
  Sun rays and sea waves
  And star and stone
  
  Manless and friendless
  No cave my home
  This is my torture
  My long nights, lone.”- Maya Angelou, The Traveller
27. “Tremors of your network
  cause kings to disappear.
  Your open mouth in anger
  makes nations bow in fear.
  Your bombs can change the seasons,
  obliterate the spring.
  What more do you long for?
  Why are you suffering?
  You control the human lives
  in Rome and Timbuktu.
  Lonely nomads wandering
  owe Telstar to you.
  Seas shift at your bidding,
  your mushrooms fill the sky.
  Why are you unhappy?
  Why do your children cry?
  They kneel alone in terror
  with dread in every glance.
  Their nights are threatened daily
  by a grim inheritance.
  You dwell in whitened castles
  with deep and poisoned moats
  and cannot hear the curses
  which fill your children’s throats.”- Maya Angelou, These Yet to be United States
28. “if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
  in spite of everything,
  don’t do it.
  unless it comes unasked out of your
  heart and your mind and your mouth
  and your gut,
  don’t do it.
  if you have to sit for hours
  staring at your computer screen
  or hunched over your
  typewriter
  searching for words,
  don’t do it.
  if you’re doing it for money or
  fame,
  don’t do it.
  if you’re doing it because you want
  women in your bed,
  don’t do it.
  if you have to sit there and
  rewrite it again and again,
  don’t do it.
  if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
  don’t do it.
  if you’re trying to write like somebody
  else,
  forget about it.if you have to wait for it to roar out of
  you,
  then wait patiently.
  if it never does roar out of you,
  do something else.if you first have to read it to your wife
  or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
  or your parents or to anybody at all,
  you’re not ready.don’t be like so many writers,
  don’t be like so many thousands of
  people who call themselves writers,
  don’t be dull and boring and
  pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
  love.
  the libraries of the world have
  yawned themselves to
  sleep
  over your kind.
  don’t add to that.
  don’t do it.unless it comes out of
  your soul like a rocket,
  unless being still would
  drive you to madness or
  suicide or murder,
  don’t do it.
  unless the sun inside you is
  burning your gut,
  don’t do it.
  when it is truly time,
  and if you have been chosen,
  it will do it by
  itself and it will keep on doing it
  until you die or it dies in you.there is no other way.and there never was.”- Charles Bukowski, so you want to be a writer?
29. “One Sister have I in our house –
  
  And one a hedge away.
  
  There’s only one recorded,
  
  But both belong to me.
  
  One came the way that I came –
  
  And wore my past year’s gown –
  
  The other as a bird her nest,
  
  Builded our hearts among.
  
  She did not sing as we did –
  
  It was a different tune
  
  Herself to her a Music
  
  As Bumble-bee of June.
  
  Today is far from Childhood –
  
  But up and down the hills
  
  I held her hand the tighter –
  
  Which shortened all the miles –
  
  And still her hum
  
  The years among,
  
  Deceives the Butterfly;
  
  Still in her Eye
  
  The Violets lie
  
  Mouldered this many May.
  
  I split the dew –
  
  But took the morn, –
  
  I chose this single star
  
  From out the wide night’s numbers –
  
  Sue – forevermore!” – Emily Dickinson
30. “Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
  
  Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
  
  And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
  
  Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
  
  An angel writing in a book of gold:—
  
  Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
  
  And to the presence in the room he said,
  
  “What writest thou?”—The vision raised its head,
  
  And with a look made of all sweet accord,
  
  Answered, “The names of those who love the Lord.”
  
  “And is mine one?” said Abou. “Nay, not so,”
  
  Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
  
  But cheerly still; and said, “I pray thee, then,
  
  Write me as one that loves his fellow men.”
  
  The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
  
  It came again with a great wakening light,
  
  And showed the names whom love of God had blest,
  
  And lo! Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest.” – Leigh Hunt, Abou Ben Adhem
31. “Well, son, I’ll tell you:
  
  Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
  
  It’s had tacks in it,
  
  And splinters,
  
  And boards torn up,
  
  And places with no carpet on the floor—
  
  Bare.
  
  But all the time
  
  I’se been a-climbin’ on,
  
  And reachin’ landin’s,
  
  And turnin’ corners,
  
  And sometimes goin’ in the dark
  
  Where there ain’t been no light.
  
  So boy, don’t you turn back.
  
  Don’t you set down on the steps
  
  ’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
  
  Don’t you fall now—
  
  For I’se still goin’, honey,
  
  I’se still climbin’,
  
  And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.” – Langston Hughes, Mother to Son
32. “If starry space no limit knows
  And sun succeeds to sun,
  There is no reason to suppose
  Our earth the only one.
  ‘Mid countless constellations cast
  A million worlds may be,
  With each a God to bless or blast
  And steer to destiny.Just think! A million gods or so
  To guide each vital stream,
  With over all to boss the show
  A Deity supreme.
  Such magnitudes oppress my mind;
  From cosmic space it swings;
  So ultimately glad to find
  Relief in little things.For look! Within my hollow hand,
  While round the earth careens,
  I hold a single grain of sand
  And wonder what it means.
  Ah! If I had the eyes to see,
  And brain to understand,
  I think Life’s mystery might be
  Solved in this grain of sand.” – Robert W. Service, A Grain of Sand
33. “No man is an island,
  Entire of itself;
  Every man is a piece of the continent,
  A part of the main.
  If a clod be washed away by the sea,Europe is the less,
  As well as if a promontory were:
  As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
  Or of thine own were.Any man’s death diminishes me,
  Because I am involved in mankind.
  And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
  It tolls for thee.” – John Donne, No Man is an Island
34. “If I can stop one heart from breaking,
  I shall not live in vain;
  If I can ease one life the aching,
  Or cool one pain,
  Or help one fainting robin
  Unto his nest again,
  I shall not live in vain.” – Emily Dickinson
35. “Success is counted sweetest
  By those who ne’er succeed.
  To comprehend a nectar
  Requires sorest need.Not one of all the purple Host
  Who took the Flag today
  Can tell the definition
  So clear of victoryAs he defeated – dying –
  On whose forbidden ear
  The distant strains of triumph
  Burst agonized and clear!” – Emily Dickinson
36. “Before I got my eye put out –
  I liked as well to see
  As other creatures, that have eyes –
  And know no other way –But were it told to me, Today,
  That I might have the Sky
  For mine, I tell you that my Heart
  Would split, for size of me –The Meadows – mine –
  The Mountains – mine –
  All Forests – Stintless stars –
  As much of noon, as I could take –
  Between my finite eyes –The Motions of the Dipping Birds –
  The Morning’s Amber Road –
  For mine – to look at when I liked,
  The news would strike me dead –So safer – guess – with just my soul
  Opon the window pane
  Where other creatures put their eyes –
  Incautious – of the Sun –” – Emily Dickinson
37. “‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
  Knocking on the moonlit door;
  And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
  Of the forest’s ferny floor:
  And a bird flew up out of the turret,
  Above the Traveller’s head:
  And he smote upon the door again a second time;
  ‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.
  But no one descended to the Traveller;
  No head from the leaf-fringed sill
  Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
  Where he stood perplexed and still.
  But only a host of phantom listeners
  That dwelt in the lone house then
  Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
  To that voice from the world of men:
  Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
  That goes down to the empty hall,
  Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
  By the lonely Traveller’s call.
  And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
  Their stillness answering his cry,
  While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
  ’Neath the starred and leafy sky;
  For he suddenly smote on the door, even
  Louder, and lifted his head:—
  ‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,
  That I kept my word,’ he said.
  Never the least stir made the listeners,
  Though every word he spake
  Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
  From the one man left awake:
  Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
  And the sound of iron on stone,
  And how the silence surged softly backward,
  When the plunging hoofs were gone.” – Walter De La Mare, The Listeners
38. “If the hope of giving
  is to love the living,
  
  the giver risks madness
  
  in the act of giving.
  
  Some such lesson I seemed to see
  
  in the faces that surrounded me.
  
  Needy and blind, unhopeful, unlifted,
  
  what gift would give them the gift to be gifted?
  
  The giver is no less adrift
  
  than those who are clamouring for the gift.
  
  If they cannot claim it, if it is not there,
  
  if their empty fingers beat the empty air
  
  and the giver goes down on his knees in prayer
  
  knows that all of his giving has been for naught
  
  and that nothing was ever what he thought
  
  and turns in his guilty bed to stare
  
  at the starving multitudes standing there
  
  and rises from bed to curse at heaven,
  
  he must yet understand that to whom much is given
  
  much will be taken, and justly so:
  
  I cannot tell how much I owe.” – James Baldwin, The giver (for Berdis)
39. “My ways are not their ways.
  I would not think of them,
  one way or the other,
  did not they so grotesquely
  block the view
  between me and my brother.” – James Baldwin, Staggerlee Wonders
40. “No, I don’t feel death coming.
  I feel death going:
  having thrown up his hands,
  for the moment.I feel like I know him
  better than I did.
  Those arms held me,
  for a while,
  and, when we meet again,
  there will be that secret knowledge
  between us.” – James Baldwin, Amen
41. “My country,
  ’tis of thee I sing. You, enemy of all tribes,
  known, unknown, past,
  present, or, perhaps, above all,
  to come:
  I sing:
  my dear,
  my darling,
  jewel
  (Columbia, the gem of
  the ocean!)
  or, as I, a street nigger,
  would put it-:
  (Okay. I’m your nigger
  baby, till I get bigger!)
  You are my heart. Why
  have you allowed yourself
  to become so grimly wicked?I
  do not ask you why
  you have spurned,
  despised my love
  as something beneath you.
  We all have our ways and
  days
  but my love has been as constant
  as the rays
  coming from the earth
  or the sun,
  which you have used to obliterate
  me,
  and, now, according to your purpose,
  all mankind,
  from the nigger, to you,
  and to your children’s children.I have endured your fire
  and your whip,
  your rope,
  and the panic from your hip,
  in many ways, false lover,
  yet, my love:
  you do not know
  how desperately I hoped
  that you would grow
  not so much to love me
  as to know
  that what you do to me
  you do to you.No man can have a harlot
  for a lover
  nor stay in bed forever
  with a lie.
  He must rise up
  and face the morning sky
  and himself, in the mirror
  of his lover’s eye.You do not love me.
  I see that.
  You do not see me:
  I am your black cat.You forget
  that I remember an Egypt
  where I was worshipped
  where I was loved.No one has ever worshipped you,
  nor ever can: you think that love
  is a territorial matter,
  and racial,
  oh, yes,
  where I was worshipped
  and you were hurling stones,
  stones which you have hurled at me,
  to kill me,
  and, now,
  you hurl at the earth,
  our mother,
  the toys which slaughtered
  Cain’s brother.What panic makes you
  want to die?
  How can you fail to look
  into your lover’s eye?Your black dancer
  holds the answer:
  your only hope
  beyond the rope.
  
  Of rope you fashioned,
  usefully,
  enough hangs from
  your hanging tree
  to carry you
  where you sent me.
  
  And, then, false lover,
  you will know
  what love has managed
  here below.”– James Baldwin, A Lover’s Question
42. “It is dreadful to be
  so violently dispersed.
  To dare hope for nothing,
  and yet dare to hope.
  To know that hoping
  and not hoping
  are both criminal endeavours,
  and, yet, to play one’s cards.” – James Baldwin
43. “Lord,
  
  when you send the rain
  
    think about it, please,
  
    a little?
  
    Do
  
    not get carried away
  
    by the sound of falling water,
  
  the marvelous light
  
  on the falling water.
  
  I
  
  am beneath that water.
  
  It falls with great force
  
  and the light
  
  Blinds
  
  me to the light.”– James Baldwin, Untitled
44. “Love,
  love has no gifts to give
  except the revelation that the soul can live:
  on a coming day,
  you will hear, from afar,
  I, your lover, pray.
  You will hear, then, the prayer that you cannot hear now,
  and, when you hear that sobbing, boy, rejoice,
  and know that love is the purpose of the human voice!”– James Baldwin, Neuilly sur Seine, le 23 Juillet 1970
45. “Oh do you have time
  to linger
  for just a little while
  out of your busyand very important day
  for the goldfinches
  that have gathered
  in a field of thistlesfor a musical battle,
  to see who can sing
  the highest note,
  or the lowest,or the most expressive of mirth,
  or the most tender?
  Their strong, blunt beaks
  drink the airas they strive
  melodiously
  not for your sake
  and not for mineand not for the sake of winning
  but for sheer delight and gratitude—
  believe us, they say,
  it is a serious thingjust to be alive
  on this fresh morning
  in the broken world.
  I beg of you,do not walk by
  without pausing
  to attend to this
  rather ridiculous performance.It could mean something.
  It could mean everything.
  It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
  You must change your life.”– Mary Oliver, Invitation
46. على هذه الأرض ما يستحق الحياة: تردد إبريل، رائحة الخبزِ”
  
  في الفجر، آراء امرأة في الرجال، كتابات أسخيليوس ، أول
  
  الحب، عشب على حجرٍ، أمهاتٌ تقفن على خيط ناي، وخوف
  
  الغزاة من الذكرياتْ.
  
  على هذه الأرض ما يستحق الحياةْ: نهايةُ أيلولَ، سيّدةٌ تترُكُ
  
  الأربعين بكامل مشمشها، ساعة الشمس في السجن، غيمٌ يُقلّدُ
  
  سِرباً من الكائنات، هتافاتُ شعب لمن يصعدون إلى حتفهم
  
  باسمين، وخوفُ الطغاة من الأغنياتْ.
  
  على هذه الأرض ما يستحقّ الحياةْ: على هذه الأرض سيدةُ
  
  الأرض، أم البدايات أم النهايات. كانت تسمى فلسطين. صارتْ
  
  “.تسمى فلسطين. سيدتي: أستحق، لأنك سيدتي، أستحق الحياة
  
  – Mahmoud Darwish, We Have on This Earth What Makes Life Worth Living
47. “But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown hands
  gloved with green. You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old finger
  on your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back.
  You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look
  of the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite
  every sorrow until it fled, and when it is August,
  you can have it August and abundantly so. You can have love,
  though often it will be mysterious, like the white foam
  that bubbles up at the top of the bean pot over the red kidneys
  until you realize foam’s twin is blood.
  You can have the skin at the center between a man’s legs,
  so solid, so doll-like. You can have the life of the mind,
  glowing occasionally in priestly vestments, never admitting pettiness,
  never stooping to bribe the sullen guard who’ll tell you
  all roads narrow at the border.
  You can speak a foreign language, sometimes,
  and it can mean something. You can visit the marker on the grave
  where your father wept openly. You can’t bring back the dead,
  but you can have the words forgive and forget hold hands
  as if they meant to spend a lifetime together. And you can be grateful
  for makeup, the way it kisses your face, half spice, half amnesia, grateful
  for Mozart, his many notes racing one another towards joy, for towels
  sucking up the drops on your clean skin, and for deeper thirsts,
  for passion fruit, for saliva. You can have the dream,
  the dream of Egypt, the horses of Egypt and you riding in the hot sand.
  You can have your grandfather sitting on the side of your bed,
  at least for a while, you can have clouds and letters, the leaping
  of distances, and Indian food with yellow sauce like sunrise.
  You can’t count on grace to pick you out of a crowd
  but here is your friend to teach you how to high jump,
  how to throw yourself over the bar, backwards,
  until you learn about love, about sweet surrender,
  and here are periwinkles, buses that kneel, farms in the mind
  as real as Africa. And when adulthood fails you,
  you can still summon the memory of the black swan on the pond
  of your childhood, the rye bread with peanut butter and bananas
  your grandmother gave you while the rest of the family slept.
  There is the voice you can still summon at will, like your mother’s,
  it will always whisper, you can’t have it all,
  but there is this.”– Barbara Ras, You Can’t Have it All
48. “I am so tired of waiting.
  Aren’t you,
  for the world to become good
  and beautiful and kind?
  Let us take a knife
  and cut the world in two-
  and see what worms are eating
  at the rind.”– Langston Hughes, Tired
49. “I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
  flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
  as it was taught, and if not how shall
  I correct it?
  Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
  can I do better?
  Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
  can do it and I am, well,
  hopeless.
  Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
  am I going to get rheumatism,
  lockjaw, dementia?
  Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
  And I gave it up. And took my old body
  and went out in the morning,
  and sang.”- Mary Oliver, I Worried
50. “Isn’t the moon dark too,
  most of the time?
  And doesn’t the white page
  seem unfinished
  without the dark stain
  of alphabets?
  When God demanded light,
  he didn’t banish darkness.
  Instead he invented
  ebony and crows
  and that small mole
  on your left cheekbone.
  Or did you mean to ask
  “Why are you sad so often?”
  Ask the moon.
  Ask what it has witnessed.”– Linda Pastan, Why are Your Poems so Dark?
51. “In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political
  I must listen to the birds
  and in order to hear the birds
  the warplanes must be silent.”– Marwan Makhoul
52. “let ruin end here
  let him find honey
  where there was once a slaughter
  let him enter the lion’s cage
  and find a field of lilacs
  let this be the healing
  and if not let it be“– Danez Smith
53. “to live in this world
  you must be able to
  to do three things
  to love what is mortal;
  to hold it
  against your bones knowing
  your own life depends on it;
  and, when the time comes to let it go,
  to let it go.”– Mary Oliver, In Blackwater Woods
54. “Because right now there is someone
  Out there with
  a wound in the exact shape
  of your words.”– Sean Thomas Dougherty, Why Bother
55. “to love life, to love it even
  when you have no stomach for it
  and everything you’ve held dear
  crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
  your throat filled with the silt of it.
  When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
  thickening the air, heavy as water
  more fit for gills than lungs;
  when grief weights you like your own flesh
  only more of it, an obesity of grief,
  you think, How can a body withstand this?
  Then you hold life like a face
  between your palms, a plain face,
  no charming smile, no violet eyes,
  and you say, yes, I will take you
  I will love you, again.”– Ellen Bass, The Thing Is
56. “And I said to my body
  softly, ‘I want to be
  your friend.’It took a long breath
  and replied, ‘I have
  been waiting my
  whole life for this.'”– Nayyirah Waheed
57. “Understand me.
  I am not like an ordinary world.
  I have my madness,
  I live in another dimension and I do not
  have time for things that have no soul.”- Charles Bukowski
58. “Look, and look again.
  This world is not just a little thrill for your eyes.It’s more than bones.
  It’s more tan the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.
  It’s more than the beating of a single heart.
  It’s praising.
  It’s giving until the giving feels like receiving.
  You have a life – just imagine that!
  You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe
  Still another…And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.
  I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.
  I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,
  I have become younger.And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?
  Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.”– Mary Oliver
59. “That it will never come again
  Is what makes life so sweet.
  Believing what we don’t believe
  Does not exhilarate.That if it be, it be at best
  An ablative estate —
  This instigates an appetite
  Precisely opposite.”– Emily Dickinson
60. “The little girl saw her first troop parade and asked,
  ‘What are those?’
  ‘Soldiers.’
  ‘What are soldiers?’
  ‘They are for war. They fight and each tries to kill as many of the other side as he can.’
  The girl held still and studied.
  ‘Do you know … I know something?’
  ‘Yes, what is it you know?’
  ‘Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come.'”– Carl Sandburg
61. “But once in a while the odd thing happens
  Once in a while the dream comes true
  And the whole pattern of life is altered,
  Once in a while the moon turns blue.”– W.H. Auden
62. “Yes,
  You will rise from the ashes,
  But the burning comes first.
  
  For this part,
  Darling,
  You must be brave.”- Kalen Dion
63. “‘I’ll take care of you.’
  ‘It’s rotten work.’
  ‘Not to me. Not if it’s you.'”- Anne Carson, Euripides
64. “Look, we are not unspectacular things.
  We’ve come this far, survived this much.
  What would happen if we decided to survive more?
  To love harder?”– Ada Limón, excerpt from Dead Stars
65. “Before my grandfather died, I asked him what sort
  of horse he had growing up. He said,
  Just a horse. My horse, with such a tenderness it
  rubbed the bones in the ribs all wrong.
  I have always been too sensitive, a weeper
  from a long line of weepers.
  I am the hurting kind. I keep searching for proof.”- Ada Limón, The Hurting Kind

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