Poems Rethabile Likes

"Vestibule" is a poem by Dan Albergotti I sometimes wish I could find Cindy to thank her for agreeing with my fine idea that we sneak into the university chapel late one night in 1983 to make love. I don't just want to thank her for giving me the trump card — "house of worship"— I hold in every stupid party game that begins, "Where's the strangest place you've ever...?" No, I want to thank her for the truth of it. For knowing that the heart is holy even when our own hearts were so frail and callow. Truth: it was 1983; we were nineteen years old; we lay below the altar and preached a quiet sermon not just on the divinity of skin, but on the grace of the heart beneath. It was the only homily we knew, and our souls were...

"When we are weak" is a poem by R. S. Thomas When we are weak, we are strong. When our eyes close on the world, then somewhere within us the bush burns. When we are poor and aware of the inadequacy of our table, it is to that uninvited the guest comes Poet: R. S. Thomas Source: @RoundHousePoetryCircle Books: @Abebooks When we are weak, we are strong. Please take a moment to read the guidelines first. Use the form to sign up and receive poems . Check out my latest book, Mbera . This bl...

"Looking Across the River," a poem by William Stafford We were driving the river road. It was at night. “There’s the island,” someone said. And we all looked across at the light where the hermit lived. “I’d be afraid to live there”— it was Ken the driver who spoke. He shivered and let us feel the fear that made him shake. Over to that dark island my thought had already crossed— I felt the side of the house and the night wind unwilling to rest. For the first time in all my life I became someone else: it was dark; others were going their way; the river and I kept ours. We came on home that night; the road led us on. Everything we said was louder—it was hollow, and sounded dark like a bridge. Somewhere I had lost someone— so dear or so great...

"Her Kind," a poem by Anne Sexton I have gone out, a possessed witch, haunting the black air, braver at night; dreaming evil, I have done my hitch over the plain houses, light by light: lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind. A woman like that is not a woman, quite. I have been her kind. I have found the warm caves in the woods, filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves, closets, silks, innumerable goods; fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves: whining, rearranging the disaligned. A woman like that is misunderstood. I have been her kind. I have ridden in your cart, driver, waved my nude arms at villages going by, learning the last bright routes, survivor where your flames still bite my thigh and my ribs crack where your wheels wind...

"Bye-Bye," a poem by Derek Sheffield The animal of winter is dying, its white body everywhere in collapse and stabbed at by straws of light, a leaving to believe in as the air slowly fills with darkness and water drains from the tub where my daughter, watching it lower around her, feeling it go, says about the only thing she can as if it were a long- kept breath going with her blessing of dribble and fleck. Down it swirls a living drill vanishing toward a land where tomorrow already fixes its bright eye on a man muttering his way into a crowd, saying about the only thing he can before his body ...

"Why Regret," a poem by Galway Kinnell Didn't you like the way the ants help the peony globes open by eating the glue off? Weren't you cheered to see the ironworkers sitting on an I-beam dangling from a cable, in a row, like starlings, eating lunch, maybe baloney on white with fluorescent mustard? Wasn't it a revelation to waggle from the estuary all the way up the river, the kill, the pirle, the run, the rent, the beck, the sike barely trickling, to the shock of a spring? Didn't you almost shiver, hearing book lice clicking their sexual dissonance inside an old Webster's New International, perhaps having just eaten out of it izle, xyster, and thalassacon? What did you imagine lies in wait anyway at the end of a world whose sub-s...

"If I must die," a poem by Refaat Alareer If I must die, you must live to tell my story to sell my things to buy a piece of cloth and some strings, (make it white with a long tail) so that a child, somewhere in Gaza while looking heaven in the eye awaiting his dad who left in a blaze — and bid no one farewell not even to his flesh not even to himself — sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above, and thinks for a moment an angel is there bringing back love. If I must die let it bring hope, let it be a story. Poet: Refaat Alareer Source: Round House Poetry Circle Books: @AbeBooks If I must die, you must live to tell my story ...

MOONLESS NIGHT, a poem by Louise Glück A lady weeps at a dark window. Must we say what it is? Can’t we simply say a personal matter? It’s early summer; next door the Lights are practicing klezmer music. A good night: the clarinet is in tune. As for the lady--she’s going to wait forever; there’s no point in watching longer. After awhile, the streetlight goes out. But is waiting forever always the answer? Nothing is always the answer; the answer depends on the story. Such a mistake to want clarity above all things. What's a single night, especially one like this, now so close to ending? On the other side, there could be anything, all the joy in the world, the stars fading, the streetlight becoming a bus stop. Poet: Louise Glück Source: Voetica ...

"Sacred Unleaving," a poem by César Vallejo Oh moon, you crown of an enormous head thinning in shadowy goldenness! You crimson crown of a Jesus who thinks of emeralds with a tragic sweetness. Oh moon, you crazy heart of the sky, why row on like this, in the blue wine of the goblet, and ever westward, with such a vanquished, aching stern? Oh moon, by flying away in vain like this, you obliviate into a spatter of opals; perhaps you are my gypsy heart, which wails its verses while wandering out in the blue. Poet: César Vallejo Source: @Poets.Org Books: @AbeBooks Translated from the Spanish by Yvette Siegert Oh moon, you crazy heart of the sky, why row on like this, in the blue wine? ...

To the Words, a poem by W. S. Merwin When it happens you are not there O you beyond numbers beyond recollection passed on from breath to breath given again from day to day from age to age charged with knowledge knowing nothing indifferent elders indispensable and sleepless keepers of our names before ever we came to be called by them you that were formed to begin with you that were cried out you that were spoken to begin with to say what could not be said ancient precious and helpless ones say it Poet: W. S. Merwin Source: Voetica Books: @AbeBooks You that were formed to begin with ...