Poems Rethabile Likes

Nostalgia by Carol Ann Duffy | Poems Rethabile Likes Nostalgia by Carol Ann Duffy Those early mercenaries, it made them ill— leaving the mountains, leaving the high, fine air to go down, down. What they got was money, dull, crude coins clenched in the teeth; strange food, the wrong taste, stones in the belly; and the wrong sounds, the wrong smells, the wrong light, every breath— wrong. They had an ache here, Doctor, they pined, wept, grown men. It was killing them. It was a given name. Hearing tell of it, there were those who stayed put, fearful of a sweet pain in the heart; of how it hurt, in t...

Putting in the Seed by Robert Frost | Poems Rethabile Likes Putting in the Seed by Robert Frost You come to fetch me from my work to-night When supper's on the table, and we'll see If I can leave off burying the white Soft petals fallen from the apple tree. (Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite, Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;) And go along with you ere you lose sight Of what you came for and become like me, Slave to a springtime passion for the earth. How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed On through the watching for that early birth When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed, ...

The Thing Is by Ellen Bass | Poems Rethabile Likes The Thing Is by Ellen Bass 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...

We Don't Know How to Say Goodbye by Anna Akhmatova | Poems Rethabile Likes We Don't Know How to Say Goodbye by Anna Akhmatova We don't know how to say goodbye, We wander on, shoulder to shoulder. Already the sun is going down. You're moody, and I am your shadow. Let's step inside a church, hear prayers, masses for the dead. Why are we so different from the rest? Outside in the graveyard we sit on a frozen branch. That stick in your hand is tracing Mansions in the snow in which we will always be together. Poet: @AnnaAkhmatova Online: @PoemHunter ...

Hymn to Eros by Denise Levertov | Poems Rethabile Likes Hymn to Eros by Denise Levertov O Eros, silently smiling one, hear me. Let the shadow of thy wings brush me. Let thy presence enfold me, as if darkness were swandown. Let me see that darkness lamp in hand, this country become the other country sacred to desire. Drowsy god, slow the wheels of my thought so that I listen only to the snowfall hush of thy circling. Close my beloved with me in the smoke ring of thy power, that we may be, each to the other, figures of flame, ...

After the Loss of a Limb by Elena Wilkinson | Poems Rethabile Likes After the Loss of a Limb by Elena Wilkinson After the family surgeon has severed my hand and wrist from the forearm, And I have carefully washed the separated hand with the connected hand, And done its fingernails, and put a drop of perfume at the pulse of the wrist, And soothed the hand, and stroked it, and spoken to it Until it understands everything, why the operation was necessary, And I have kissed each finger before picking it up by the thumb And packing it with colored tissue in a nice box, And with some difficulty wrapped it and sent it away, And when you receive the package...

Ars Poetica by Rethabile Masilo | Poems Rethabile Likes Ars Poetica by Rethabile Masilo During an empty period one still expects words, accepts them like a betrayal and lives them. There will be questions with no answers for the day will be funereal. But when they kill a kid and you receive babble from a three-year old, name that time Babel. Let his mother's wails frown on you, then add her cries to the child's. Get turned into a fist at first, in apartheid jails. Pielkop! Then become a dog. Kaffir! Gaan fok jouself! In exile, beg yourself for release from the dungeon where you put yourself, hoping to starve and die. ...