Chelsea Walls

This poem is featured in the film Chelsea Walls, directed by Ethan Hawke...

I want to be a lost poem
in a stranger's coat pocket,
that conveys the importance of you.
To assure you of my desire,
to assure you of dreams.
I want all the possibilities
of you in writing.
I want to give you
your reflection,
I want your eyes on me,
I want to travel to the lightness
with you and stay there,
and I want
everything before you...
...everything before you
to follow us like a trail behind me.
I want never
to say goodbye to you,
even on the street corner
or the phone.
I want,
I want so much
I'm breathless.
I want to put my power
into a poem to burn a hole
in your pocket
so I can sew it.
I want my words
to scream through you
I want the poem
not to mean that much.
And I want
to contradict myself by accident,
and for you
to know what I mean.
I want you to be distant
and for me to feel you close,
I want endless days
when it's day and...
nighttime never to end
when it's night.
I want all the seasons
in one day.
I want the sun to set before us
and come up in front of us.
I want water up to our waists
and to be drenched by the rain,
up to our ankles
with holes in our shoes.
...with holes in our shoes.
I want to think your thoughts
because they're mine.
I want only
what's urgent with you.
I want to get
in the way of the barriers
and I want you to be a tough guy
when you're supposed to,
like you do already.
...when you're supposed to.
And I want you to be tender,
like you do already.
And I want us
to have met for a reason
and I want that reason
to be important.
And I want it
to be bigger than us,
I want it to take over us.
I want to forget.
I want to remember us.
And when you say
you love me
I don't want to think
you really mean New York City,
and all the fun
we have in it.
And I want your smile always,
and your grimaces too.
I want your scar on my lips,
and I want your disappointments
in my heart.
I want your strength
in my soul
and I want
your soul in my eyes,
I want to believe
everything you say,
and I do.
And I want you
to tell me what's best
when I don't know.
And when you're lost
I want to find you.
And when you're weary
I want to give you steeples
and cathedral thoughts
and coliseum dreams.
I want to drag you from the darkness
and kneel with you
exhausted with the blinding light
blaring on us,
And... 

Submitted by: Rachel Radebaugh

Public Transportation

After so much exposure to poetry, Chad was prompted to try is own hand at writing a poem, which he sent to me immediately. I have to say that I hadn't laughed so hard in awhile and it just goes to show how much easily you can incorporate poetry into your life!

Public Transportation

A poem by Chad Wagstaff

 

A thorn in all of our sides,

that cantakerous wench finally got what was coming to her.

She wasn't one to waterboard,

she doused you with acid the second you stepped into earshot.

The caustic splash even caused bystanders to turn, and turn into stone.

 

Medusa's snakes hissing a hymn so foul and shrill,

it penetrated my plugged ears.

While dying, my heart still ached for those with open drums, withstanding the attack.

 

Yes that bitch finally got what was coming.

The shun and hang of a Salem witch.

A gangster's pistol whip.

The ultimate dose of her own medicine-

Besides that sure and secured fate in the bowels of hell,

She had to take the bus.

 

Shel (2)

This is another video that I thought was really great. Poems by video are like cliffs notes for the attention deficit.

Shel Silverstein

It's Dark in Here

I am writing these poems
From inside a lion,
And it's rather dark in here.
So please excuse the handwriting
Which may not be too clear.
But this afternoon by the lion's cage
I'm afraid I got too near.
And I'm writing these lines
From inside a lion,
And it's rather dark in here.

Shel Silverstein 

submitted by: Kim Smith

Everyone has a poem they remember from childhood...Shel Silverstein was the quirky voice we grew up with! Share his work with someone small.

I found this video which I think is 

adorable, enjoy!

Invocation

Invocation

by Robin Morgan
for Isel Rivero

Gunmen attacked a school in northwestern Rwanda last Monday, killing seventeen girls.... The Attack took place after the Hutu gunmen ordered the girls to separate into groups of ethnic Hutu or Tutsi, and the students refused to comply.

--From The New York Times, April 30, 1997

Insane, sadistic gods to whom I offer
only my denial and disgust,
how do we bear witness to each other
when such defiance gleams beyond our trust?

They stupify us, these small, nameless girls
in whose name Love linked arms with her best friend.
Courage skulks shamed before these little skulls
rotting on the grassy school playground.

Let me be worthy of such children, slain
where they stand, who in the face of dying, cling.
Let me be equal to my small, sufficient pain
and in the broken teeth of horror,

sing.

Posted by: Robbie Pierce

Stephen Crane

Once, I knew a fine song,

-- It is true, believe me --
It was all of birds,
And I held them in a basket;
When I opened the wicket,
Heavens! They all flew away.
I cried, "Come back, little thoughts!"
But they only laughed.
They flew on
Until they were as sand
Thrown between me and the sky.

posted by: Chad Wagstaff

This famous American author is most famous for his novel 
"The Red Badge of Courage." My best friend once sent this poem 
saying it reminded him of me..... 







For more information and a links to all of Stephen Crane's texts 
available online! 

In Memory

In my dreams
drifting gently down stream
on golden waters...
No voices, no eyes, no ears, no luxury
Ohhh, I know, this is home...
On through age-old willows older
than dream itself I drifted,
with rays of sun seeping into my skin,
drifting far til the sharpest eye
could no longer see...
No building, no smoke, no rain, no lies
Now I know I am home...
Warm, numb, and free
I've never felt so alive
as now, as my body left me,
drifting for what seemed an eternity
lying there, on silent water
I spoke to the sea
and the sea spoke to me
we agreed
I am home

Joshua Farrer



posted by: Kevin Radebaugh

Just can't get enough...

Billy Collins is a former Poet Laureate who not only is an 
impressive poet, but for your pleasure and convenience his 
poetry has been set to animation.

Click here to see what I mean.....

Billy Collins

About Collins, the poet Stephen Dunn has said, 

"We seem to always know where we are in 

a Billy Collins poem, but not necessarily 

where he is going. I love to arrive with 

him at his arrivals. He doesn't 

hide things from us, as I think lesser 

poets do. He allows us to overhear, 

clearly, what he himself has discovered."

Forgetfulness

The name of the author is the first to go followed obediently by the title, the plot, the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of, as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain, to a little fishing village where there are no phones. Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag, and even now as you memorize the order of the planets, something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps, the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay. Whatever it is you are struggling to remember, it is not poised on the tip of your tongue, not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen. It has floated away down a dark mythological river whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall, well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle. No wonder you rise in the middle of the night to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war. No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted out of a love poem that you used to know by heart. Billy Collins

Jorie Graham

"Soul Says"

(AFTERWORD)

To be so held by brittleness, shapeliness.
By meaning. As where I have to go where you go,
I have to touch what you must touch,
in hunger, in boredom, the spindrift, the ticket...
Distilled in you (can you hear me)
the idiom in you, the why--

The flash of a voice. The river glints.
The mother opens the tablecloth up into the wind.
There as the fabric descends--the alphabet of ripenesses,
what is, what could have been.
The bread on the tablecloth. Crickets shrill in the grass.

O pluck my magic garment from me. So.
                                          [lays down his robe]
Lie there, my art--

(This is a form of matter of matter she sang)

(Where the hurry is stopped) (and held) (but not extinguished) (no)

(So listen, listen, this will soothe you) (if that is what you want)

Now then, I said, I go to meet that which I liken to
(even though the wave break and drown me in laughter)
the wave breaking, the wave drowning me in laughter--

                                          -- Jorie Graham



Submitted by: Jennifer Petersen

About Jorie Graham

Audrey

Audrey Hepburn's Beauty Tips

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day.
For poise, walk with the knowledge you'll never walk alone.
People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived,  reclaimed, and redeemed; Never throw out anybody.
Remember, If you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.
As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.
The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the  figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides.
The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole, but true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows, and the beauty of a woman with passing years only grows!


Sam Levenson 
Submitted by: Wendy

William Carlos Williams

The Red Wheelbarrow
by William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow


                                            glazed with rain
                                            water

                                           beside the white
                                           chickens.

Submitted by: Julie Keller
More works by WCW    About WCW

Portrait of a Lady

(one of my favorites)

In-FLOW

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