SHOULDER POEMS

Journey

Ah, could I lay me down in this long grass
And close my eyes, and let the quiet wind
Blow over me-I am so tired, so tired
Of passing pleasant places! All my life,
.....

Edna St. Vincent Millay

The Friends

I had some friends, but I dreamed that they were dead,
Who used to dance with lanterns round a little boy in bed;
Green and white lanterns that waved to and fro:
But I haven't seen a Firefly since ever so long ago!
.....

Rudyard Kipling

Pray For Me

She rushed into a house
darkghost where haltup
evildims where hiddown
Her room was tumultly dreadful
.....

Saviour A Willie

I Died To Live Again

Evening smile must be worn,
Tonight's dinner is served
With the drumming of their guns.
Battalion of thirsty soldiers are on the verge
.....

Dauda Tholley

Dear Daddy

My dear daddy,
You gave me intensive care for being weak ,
And made me what I am today,
Believing that I can be by your side,
.....

Norbu Dorji

Kid-o-kid

Kid-o-kid

While driving ,holding the stearing
My eyes looking at you sideways
.....

Meetali Sharma

African Woman

Womanhood is a pride
Tied around her waist
To package her mountain
In her little boubou;
.....

Dauda Tholley

Apology

My dear beloved parents,
You cared & raised me,
Sent school to learn,
Made me what I am today,
.....

Norbu Dorji

The Winner

The hulk of a man with a beer in his hand looked like a drunk old fool,
And I knew that if I hit him right, I could knock him off that stool.
But everybody said, 'Watch out, that's Tiger Man McCool.
He's had a whole lot of fights, and he always come out the winner.
.....

Shel Silverstein

Ode To Aphrodite

Deathless Aphrodite, throned in flowers,
Daughter of Zeus, O terrible enchantress,
With this sorrow, with this anguish, break my spirit
Lady, not longer!
.....

Sappho

Venus And Adonis

Even as the sun with purple-coloured face
Had ta'en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheeked Adonis hied him to the chase;
Hunting he loved, but love he laughed to scorn.
.....

William Shakespeare

Remembrances

The anniversary of great heroes were observed,
For their unwavering service,
Thinking for the good causes,
Scarifying ones happiness on others.
.....

Norbu Dorji

Double Visages

Let me go into the Gulmarg
of my heart
And stay in the middle
of my magic eye--
.....

Mohammad Younus

Dream Girl

You will come one day in a waver of love,
Tender as dew, impetuous as rain,
The tan of the sun will be on your skin,
The purr of the breeze in your murmuring speech,
.....

Carl Sandburg

Uncle Sammy.

Some men were born for great things,
Some were born for small;
Some--it is not recorded
Why they were born at all;
.....

Will Carleton

It Is Funny, You Will Be Dead Some Day

it is funny, you will be dead some day.
By you the mouth hair eyes,and i mean
the unique and nervously obscene

.....

E. E. Cummings

Corydon

A PASTORAL

SCENE: A roadside in Arcady

.....

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Endymion: Book I

ENDYMION.

A Poetic Romance.

.....

John Keats

The Tyger

Tyger Tyger. burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye.
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
.....

William Blake

The Englishman In Italy

(PIANO DI SORRENTO.)

Fortu, Frotu, my beloved one,
Sit here by my side,
.....

Robert Browning

Stanzas

Thought is an unseen net wherein our mind
Is taken and vainly struggles to be free:
Words, that should loose our spirit, do but bind
New fetters on our hoped-for liberty:
.....

Aldous Huxley

No War! No War! Give Us Peace

NO WAR! No WAR! GIVE US PEACE

Cheer! Cheer! Cheer!
War drums stopped beating
.....

Mohammad Younus

My Last Afternoon With Uncle Devereux Winslow

1922: the stone porch of my Grandfatherâ??s summer house

I
â??I wonâ??t go with you. I want to stay with Grandpa!â?
.....

Robert Lowell

The Open Steeplechase

I had ridden over hurdles up the country once or twice,
By the side of Snowy River with a horse they called 'The Ace'.
And we brought him down to Sydney, and our rider, Jimmy Rice,
Got a fall and broke his shoulder, so they nabbed me in a trice,
.....

Banjo Paterson

Snow

The three stood listening to a fresh access
Of wind that caught against the house a moment,
Gulped snow, and then blew free again-the Coles
Dressed, but dishevelled from some hours of sleep,
.....

Robert Frost

Almer Mater

Know you her secret none can utter?
Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown?
Still on the spire the pigeons flutter,
Still by the gateway flits the gown;
.....

Sir Arthur Quiller-couch

The Passions. An Ode To Music

When Music, heav'nly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Throng'd around her magic cell,
.....

William Collins

Ophelia

My locks are shorn for sorrow
Of love which may not be;
Tomorrow and tomorrow
Are plotting cruelty.
.....

Elinor Morton Wylie

A Fuzzy Fellow, Without Feet

173

A fuzzy fellow, without feet,
Yet doth exceeding run!
.....

Emily Dickinson

Endymion: Book Iii

There are who lord it o'er their fellow-men
With most prevailing tinsel: who unpen
Their baaing vanities, to browse away
The comfortable green and juicy hay
.....

John Keats

The Hunting Of The Snark

Dedication

Inscribed to a dear Child:
in memory of golden summer hours
.....

Lewis Carroll

I Thought, My Heart

I thought, my Heart, that you had healed
Of those sore smartings of the past,
And that the summers had oversealed
All mark of them at last.
.....

Thomas Hardy

Aesthetic

In a garb that was guiltless of colours
She stood, with a dull, listless air-
A creature of dumps and of dolours,
But most undeniably fair.
.....

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Porphyria's Lover

The rain set early in tonight,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:
.....

Robert Browning

On The Beach At Fontana

Wind whines and whines the shingle,
The crazy pierstakes groan;
A senile sea numbers each single
Slimesilvered stone.
.....

James Joyce

The Seven Virgins

ALL under the leaves and the leaves of life
   I met with virgins seven,
And one of them was Mary mild,
   Our Lord's mother of Heaven.
.....

Anonymous

The Sundays Of Satin-legs Smith

Inamoratas, with an approbation,
Bestowed his title. Blessed his inclination.

He wakes, unwinds, elaborately: a cat
.....

Gwendolyn Brooks

The Dance Of Life

Gracious and lovable and sweet,
She made his jaded pulses beat,
And made the glare of streets grow dim
And life more soft and hushed for himâ?¦.
.....

Conrad Potter Aiken

St. Peter And The Angel

Delivered out of raw continual pain,
smell of darkness, groans of those others
to whom he was chained--

.....

Denise Levertov

I Want To Wake Up With You

When the morning coming and i' m opening my eyes,
I want to see your face and your amazing eyes,
Your smile to wrap me in happiness and joy,
I want to wake up with you.
.....

Cristina Teodor

The Iliad: Book 23

Thus did they make their moan throughout the city, while the
Achaeans when they reached the Hellespont went back every man to his
own ship. But Achilles would not let the Myrmidons go, and spoke to
his brave comrades saying, “Myrmidons, famed horsemen and my own
.....

Homer

May Morning

Deep into spring, winter is hanging on. Bitter and skillful in his hopelessness, he stays alive in every shady place, starving along the Mediterranean: angry to see the glittering sea-pale boulder alive with lizards green as Judas leaves. Winter is hanging on. He still believes. He tries to catch a lizard by the shoulder. One olive tree below Grottaglie welcomes the winter into noontime shade, and talks as softly as Pythagoras. Be still, be patient, I can hear him say, cradling in his arms the wounded head, letting the sunlight touch the savage face.



.....

James Arlington Wright

The Nurses

When, with a pain he desires to explain to the multitude, Baby
Howls himself black in the face, toothlessly striving to curse;
And the six-months-old Mother begins to enquire of the Gods if it may be
Tummy, or Temper, or Pins, what does the adequate Nurse?
.....

Rudyard Kipling

Love Among The Ruins

I

Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles
Miles and miles
.....

Robert Browning

Rapture

If thou hast grief
And passion vex the spirit that is in thee-

There was a stony beach
.....

John Freeman

The Surfer

He thrust his joy against the weight of the sea;
climbed through, slid under those long banks of
foam--
(hawthorn hedges in spring, thorns in the face stinging).
.....

Judith Wright

The Iliad (bk I)

Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another.

And which of the gods was it that set them on to quarrel? It was the son of Jove and Leto; for he was angry with the king and sent a pestilence upon the host to plague the people, because the son of Atreus had dishonoured Chryses his priest. Now Chryses had come to the ships of the Achaeans to free his daughter, and had brought with him a great ransom: moreover he bore in his hand the sceptre of Apollo wreathed with a suppliant's wreath and he besought the Achaeans, but most of all the two sons of Atreus, who were their chiefs.

.....

Homer

Coquette

Spring is a flirt. Unexpectedly gleaming
Over the shoulder of some far blue hill.
We glimpse the blue eyes of her, smiling and beaming,
We hold out our hands to her, all of a thrill.
.....

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis

Goody Two-shoes.

Versified by Mrs. Clara Doty Bates.


Two-Shoes, Two-Shoes,
.....

Clara Doty Bates

The Sigh

Little head against my shoulder,
Shy at first, then somewhat bolder,
And up-eyed;
Till she, with a timid quaver,
.....

Thomas Hardy