JokerGem's Saved Poems

What saw you in your flight to-day,
Crows, awinging your homeward way?

Went you far in carrion quest,
Crows, that worry the sunless west?

Thieves and villains, you shameless things!
Black your record as black your...

When times of desperation greet me
With tempest and with livid storm,
And violent winds wish to defeat me,
And swallow me within their swarm ...

I will remember where I'm rooted,
And there with courage will abide;
And though the winds my...

I know as my life grows older,
 And mine eyes have clearer sight,
That under each rank of wrong, somewhere
 There lies the root of right;
That each sorrow has its purpose,
 By the sorrowing oft unguessed,
But as sure as the sun brings morning, ...

Do not stand

  By my grave, and weep.

  I am not there,

  I do not sleep—
I am the thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints in snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle, autumn rain.
As you awake...

(In Memory of J. W. T. Jr.)

He was a soldier in that fight
Where there is neither flag nor drum,
And without sound of musketry
The stealthy foemen...

Better to see your cheek grown hollow,
Better to see your temple worn,
Than to forget to follow, follow,
After the sound of a silver...

In the realm of relentless fluorescent lights, I find myself trapped, dwelling within the suffocating confines of this corporate labyrinth. Day after day, the unyielding repetition claws at my soul, the struggles of a 9 to 5 job burying me deeper...

Oh to be a child again and live
In the land of make believe
To go wherever your heart desires
Be anything you can conceive

To laugh in the face of danger
Find joy in the smallest of things
Be brave and strong one minute
The next tight to...

I ask for no mourning
My spirit survives
I’ll be with you always
So please dry your eyes

Death did not take me
For I live on
Every time voices
Are lifted in song
Every time someone
Rights what is wrong

Death did not take me
For I...

Like some clown with a painted face
With hot tears running down the cheek
Showing outward coolness and grace: wanting real feelings to displace
Raucous laughter can be loudest
When pitched in deep pain and sorrow
Joking around and making jest:...

Fearful voices in the wind
or is the dread in the one who hears
solitude, yet creeping in
personification of one's sin
But the abuse could be on both sides
to those whispery ones comes a silence
shivering their otherwise
cheerfulness, a ghost...

No Rack can torture me—
My Soul—at Liberty—
Behind this mortal Bone
There knits a bolder One—

You cannot prick with saw—
Nor pierce with Scimitar—
Two Bodies—therefore be—
Bind One—The Other...

So I'm grinning like the Cheshire
Canary that ate the cat
I sang my prose, I tipped my toes
And now I tap my...

Down in the state of Maine, the story goes,
A woman, to secure a lapsing pension,
Married a soldier-though the good Lord knows
That very common act scarce calls for mention.
What makes it worthy to be writ and read
The man she married had been nine...

"Sleep, weary ones, while ye may --
  Sleep, oh, sleep!"
  Eugene...

To live content with small means.
To seek elegance rather than luxury,

  and refinement rather than fashion.
To be worthy not respectable,

  and wealthy not rich.
To study hard, think quietly, talk gently,

  act frankly, to listen to...

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in...

Marigold, magenta, and many marvelous hues
very boldly blend and imbue the farewell.
One last warm embrace and our main light leaves view;
Ruminating of future forebears to foretell.

We shall sleep and dream of a brilliant tomorrow,
but...

I tread upon a darkened path:
Confusion’s shade and fog of wrath
Cloud so the way, my eyes do fail
To ascertain the narrow trail.

Tread follows tread as on I go,
Through brambles sharp along the road;
And voices soft but threat’ning...

Omniscient eyes upon us seem leering
Out from a darkness that dreadfully grows—
A deluge of darkness, dreadless, fearless,
Swallowing all as it easily goes.
This darkness fills the empyreal heights,
Its quietude the Negev's lonely plains.
...

S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
  A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
  Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
  Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
  Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
  Senza tema d'infamia ti...

Among the black yews, their shelter,
the owls are ranged in a row,
like alien deities, the glow,
of their red eyes pierces. They ponder.
They perch there without moving,
till that melancholy moment
when quenching the falling sun,
the shadows are...

When weary with the long day's care,
And earthly change from pain to pain,
And lost and ready to despair,
Thy kind voice calls me back again:
Oh, my true friend! I am not lone,
While thou canst speak with such a...

Just think! some night the stars will gleam
  Upon a cold, grey stone,
And trace a name with silver beam,
  And lo! 'twill be your...

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with...

Much Madness is divinest Sense -
To a discerning Eye -
Much Sense - the starkest Madness -
`Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail -
Assent - and you are sane -
Demur - you`re straightaway dangerous -
And handled with a Chain -
...