#randompoem — Public Fediverse posts

[#RandomPoem 768]

Silence

The silence is so still it creaks,
as if you trod upon a stair.
Stealthily you look around -
The edges of the world are bare.

[Grace Hoffman White]

#poetry #poezie

[#RandomPoem 767]

For the time being

We are fine, they say, for the time being.

[...]

And the parking lots are drive-through
Testing labs, we have time to pray
For those who are dying in the hospitals.

We pray the nurses will stay healthy through
Extended working shifts. We pray the doctors
Get a good night sleep before they fight to grip life
[...]

We call, check in, reassure, and smile
From a distance, hoping: for the time being.

[Carmen Bugan]

#poetry #poezie

[#RandomPoem 761]

Ik neem van het strand alleen
de gebroken schelpen mee
want die laat iedereen liggen
zelfs de zee

[Lars van der Werf]

#poetry #poezie

[#RandomPoem 759]

Als je niet oplet

Deze muziek mag je niet spelen
dat boek zou ik maar niet lezen
die foto zou ik maar verscheuren
met hem kun je beter niet gezien worden
daar krijg je misschien last mee
ik zou mijn mond maar houden
wat je straks alleen nog mag
is in een donker hol verborgen
verlangen naar het licht van de vrijheid
die je verspeeld hebt
omdat je even de andere kant uitkeek
toen je buren werden weggehaald

[Remco Campert]

#poetry #poezie

[#RandomPoem 758]

The Road goes ever on and on,
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

[J.R.R. Tolkien]

#poetry #poezie

[#RandomPoem 757]

Puck:

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
[...]
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

[Shakespeare]

#poetry #poezie

[#RandomPoem 754]

Watching My Mother

Beside the Ford Thunderbird,
a suitcase splayed open.
She collects her clothes
from the driveway.
The yellow jumper collapses
into a million threads of saffron.
She keeps dropping them.
They wither and dissolve,
petal by petal
into pavement.
Her hands are rivers.
Her eyes, mascara bats.
Her hair is crying.
I am five and perfect.

[Jessica Abughattas]

#poetry #poezie

[#RandomPoem 752]

Chernobyl Year

We dreamed of glowing children,
their throats alive and cancerous,
their eyes like lightning in the dark.

We were uneasy in our skins,
sixth grade, a year for blowing up,
for learning that nothing contains

that heat which comes from growing,
the way our parents seemed at once
both tall as cooling towers and crushed

[...]

Whatever we said was love became
plutonium, became a spark
of panic in the buried world.

[Jehanne Dubrow]

#poetry #poezie

[#RandomPoem 751]

Tree

It is foolish
to let a young redwood
grow next to a house.

Even in this
one lifetime,
you will have to choose.

That great calm being,
this clutter of soup pots and books—

Already the first branch-tips brush at the window.
Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.

[Jane Hirshfield]

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[#RandomPoem 724]

Mimesis

My daughter wouldn’t hurt a spider
That had nested
Between her bicycle handles
For two weeks
She waited
Until it left of its own accord

If you tear down the web I said
It will simply know
This isn’t a place to call home
And you’d get to go biking

She said that’s how others
Become refugees isn’t it ?

[Fady Joudah]

#poetry #poezie

[#RandomPoem 749]

What I Mean When I Say I'm Tired

I don't mean I want to sleep.
I mean I want to disappear for a while.
To be rain on a stranger's roof.
To be smoke rising from someone else's fire.
I don’t want to die.
But I do want to rest in a way
the world has never allowed me.
I don’t want comfort.
I want quiet.
I want the mercy of being unseen
without being unloved.

[K.E. Sermonté]

#poetry #poezie