Poems Rethabile Likes

Horns by Kwame Dawes | Poems Rethabile Likes Horns by Kwame Dawes I hear them in the morning, the horns, the long, deep groan of ships at dawn, the sound of something leaving, something gone. And then the taxis, the quick hot blast of impatience at a corner, a crosswalk, a signal just turned green, a pedestrian slow. The horns of our hunger, the horns of the market, the brass of negotiation, the small furious beep of a moped weaving. At noon, the big rigs, the log trucks blowing for curves, the warning, the prayer of the mountain road, the echo off the gorge. Some horns are ceremonial: the high, thin cry of a bride leaving, the bleat of a carnival float, the call to worship—the wooden horn. And in the evening, the freight train hor...

Somehow we survive by Dennis Brutus | Poems Rethabile Likes Somehow we survive by Dennis Brutus Somehow we survive and tenderness, frustrated, does not wither. Investigating searchlights rake our naked, unprotected contours; over our heads the monolithic decalogue of fascist prohibition glowers and teeters for a catastrophic fall; boots club the peeling door. But somehow we survive severance, deprivation, loss. Patrols uncoil along the asphalt dark hissing their menace to our lives, most cruel, all our land is scarred with terror, rendered unlovely and unlovable; sundered are we and all our passionate surrender but somehow tenderness survives. ...

Mother to Son by Langston Hughes | Poems Rethabile Likes Mother to Son by Langston Hughes 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. Poet: @Langst...

Sunflowers by Pamela Mordecai | Poems Rethabile Likes Sunflowers by Pamela Mordecai Vincent Van Gogh, the sunflower man cut off his ear when Paul Gaugin wouldn't stay to paint with him in southern France. I burnt my veil and wedding dress— scarred both my cheeks— tattooed rosettes along my arms with cigarettes. We both needed a man to stay. You think it was loneliness… I don't think so. Madness has always been my guess. Poet: @PamelaMordecai Online: @KinnaReads Book: @TheTrueBlueOfIslands Guidelines ☼ Archive ☼ Random Poem ☼ ...

I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work, The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands, The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown, The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing, Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, The day what be...

Murmuration by Rethabile Masilo | Poems Rethabile Likes Murmuration by Rethabile Masilo A murmuration comes to visit our old days, its black dots huddled as one, flowing spots chasing each other from side to side, a school of fish flying from a predator. We watch it blot the low sky beside our porch, beyond the top of the height of an old birch tree. There are silhouettes on the street, this early in the night, going where shapes go at this hour, even as sound pauses. Sometimes it'll surge off and leave without committing to anything violent. But at other times, swooshing in and out of existence and blacker than ever it is—it seems—bursting to speak something to the dusk, a revelation of some sort; the death of a relative we'd long lost sight of. It moves like a shoal of black mollies trapped...

Silence by Marianne Moore Silence by Marianne Moore My father used to say, "Superior people never make long visits, have to be shown Longfellow's grave or the glass flowers at Harvard. Self-reliant like the cat— that takes its prey to privacy, the mouse's limp tail hanging like a shoelace from its mouth— they sometimes enjoy solitude, and can be robbed of speech by speech which has delighted them. The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence; not in silence, but restraint." Nor was he insincere in saying, "Make my house your inn." Inns are not residences. Poet: @MarianneMoore Source: @PoetsDotOrg Books: @ThriftBooks ...