My friend Karen got married recently and I loved one of the poems that she included in her wedding. It was so unique and to me it felt like a very honest real poem, so I wanted to share it with you all on here. I liked this poem too because it made me think of my own sweetheart, if this poem is what a marriage is, then I think I am already married haha. Congrats to Karen and Ryan for getting everything they wanted!
I Want By Kim Konopka
I want
to shove my clothes
to one side of the closet,
give you the bigger half.
Quietly I'll hide most of my shoes,
so you won't know I have this many.
I will
rearrange furniture to add more,
find space on my shelves for your many books,
nail up the placard that says
poets do it, and redo it, and do it again.
I want
to share a laundry basket,
get our clothes mixed up,
wait for the yelling
when my reds run wild
into your whites
turning them a luscious pink,
your favorite color of me.
I will
move my pillow
to the other side of the bed,
lay yours next to mine,
your scent on the fabric
always near me,
even on the nights you're away.
I will
buy a new bureau to hold your
thousand and one black socks,
find a place for all those work boots,
the ones I refer to as big and ugly.
I want
more pots and pans to wash,
piles of them leaning high
from late night meals
cooked naked and drunk,
red wine pouring into
a sauce of simmering
tomatoes, garlic, and olive oil,
kisses bitten between bites,
and platefuls of our late hours,
stacking up into dawn.
I want
to stock cupboards, closets and pantry
fill the house with us.
I want to gain weight with you
because our love,
our love makes me fat.
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
A Poem for My Love
i carry your heart with me
By e e cummings
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate,my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)
When I get married, I want to have this poem read at my wedding.
What do you think? Wouldn't that be romantic? :)
By e e cummings
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate,my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)
When I get married, I want to have this poem read at my wedding.
What do you think? Wouldn't that be romantic? :)
Some Poems
Here are some poems that I found recently that I really like. In my honors English class in high school we used to read a poem every day and then write for about 15 minutes. We used to read a lot of Naomi Shihab Nye and Pablo Neruda, so those are two of my favorite poets.
Streets
By Naomi Shihab Nye
A man leaves the world
and the streets he lived on
grow a little shorter.
One more window dark
in this city, the figs on his branches
will soften for birds.
If we stand quietly enough evenings
there grows a whole company of us
standing quietly together.
overhead loud grackles are claiming their trees
and the sky which sews and sews, tirelessly sewing,
drops her purple hem.
Each thing in its time, in its place,
it would be nice to think the same about people.
Some people do. They sleep completely,
waking refreshed. Others live in two worlds,
the lost and remembered.
They sleep twice, once for the one who is gone,
once for themselves. They dream thickly,
dream double, they wake from a dream
into another one, they walk the short streets
calling out names, and then they answer.
**********
Two Countries
By Naomi Shihab Nye
Skin remembers how long the years grow
when skin is not touched, a gray tunnel
of singleness, feather lost from the tail
of a bird, swirling onto a step,
swept away by someone who never saw
it was a feather. Skin ate, walked,
slept by itself, knew how to raise a
see-you-later hand. But skin felt
it was never seen, never known as
a land on the map, nose like a city,
hip like a city, gleaming dome of the mosque
and the hundred corridors of cinnamon and rope.
Skin had hope, that's what skin does.
Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.
Love means you breathe in two countries.
And skin remembers--silk, spiny grass,
deep in the pocket that is skin's secret own.
Even now, when skin is not alone,
it remembers being alone and thanks something larger
that there are travelers, that people go places
larger than themselves.
**********
Breaking the Fast
By Naomi Shihab Nye
1.
Japanese teacher says:
At first light, rise.
Don’t hover between
sleep and waking,
this makes you heavy,
puts a stone inside your heart.
The minute you drift back to shore,
anchor. Breathe.
Remember your deepest name.
2.
Sometimes objects stun me,
bamboo strainer, gray mug,
sitting exactly where
they were left.
They have not slept
or dreamt of lost faces.
I touch them carefully,
saying, tell me what you know.
3.
Cup of waves,
strawberry balanced
in a seashell.
In morning the water seems
clear to the bottom.
No fish blocks my view.
**********
Valentine For Ernest Mann
By Naomi Shihab Nye
You can’t order a poem like you order a taco.
Walk up to the counter, say, “I’ll take two”
and expect it to be handed back to you
on a shiny plate.
Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, “Here’s my address,
write me a poem,” deserves something in reply.
So I’ll tell you a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.
Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn’t understand why she was crying.
“I thought they had such beautiful eyes.”
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he re-invented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.
Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the odd sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.
And let me know.
**********
The List
By Naomi Shihab Nye
A man told me he had calculated
the exact number of books
he would be able to read before he died
by figuring the average number
of books he read per month
and his probable earth span,
(averaging how long
his dad and grandpa had lived,
adding on a few years since he
exercised more than they did).
Then he made a list of necessary books,
nonfiction mostly, history, philosophy,
fiction, and poetry from different time periods
so there wouldn’t be large gaps in his mind.
He had given up frivolous reading entirely.
There are only so many days.
Oh, I felt sad to hear such an organized plan.
What about the books that aren’t written yet,
the books his friends might recommend
that aren’t on the list,
the yummy magazine that might fall
into his hand at a silly moment after all?
What about the mystery search
through the delectable library shelves?
I felt the heartbeat of forgotten precious books
calling for his hand.
**********
Genetics
By Naomi Shihab Nye
From my father I inherited the ability
to stand in a field and stare.
Look, look at that gray dot by the fence.
It’s his donkey. My father doesn’t have
a deep interest in donkeys, more a figurative one.
To know it’s out there nuzzling the ground.
That’s how I feel about my life.
I like to skirt the edges. There it is in the field.
Feeding itself.
*
From my mother, an obsession about the stove
and correct spelling. The red stove, old as I am, must be
polished at all times. You don’t know this about me.
I do it when you’re not home.
The Magic Chef gleams in his tipped hat.
Oven shoots to 500 when you set it low.
Then fluctuates. Like a personality.
Thanks to my mother I now have an oven thermometer
but must open the oven door to check it.
Even when a cake’s in there. Isn’t that supposed to be
disaster for a cake?
My mother does crosswords, which I will never do.
But a word spelled wrongly anywhere
prickles my skin. Return to beginning
with pencil, black ink.
Cross you at the “a.” Rearrange.
We had family discussions
about a preference for the British grey.
In the spelling bee I tripped on reveille,
a bugle call, a signal at dawn.
I have risen early
ever since.
Streets
By Naomi Shihab Nye
A man leaves the world
and the streets he lived on
grow a little shorter.
One more window dark
in this city, the figs on his branches
will soften for birds.
If we stand quietly enough evenings
there grows a whole company of us
standing quietly together.
overhead loud grackles are claiming their trees
and the sky which sews and sews, tirelessly sewing,
drops her purple hem.
Each thing in its time, in its place,
it would be nice to think the same about people.
Some people do. They sleep completely,
waking refreshed. Others live in two worlds,
the lost and remembered.
They sleep twice, once for the one who is gone,
once for themselves. They dream thickly,
dream double, they wake from a dream
into another one, they walk the short streets
calling out names, and then they answer.
**********
Two Countries
By Naomi Shihab Nye
Skin remembers how long the years grow
when skin is not touched, a gray tunnel
of singleness, feather lost from the tail
of a bird, swirling onto a step,
swept away by someone who never saw
it was a feather. Skin ate, walked,
slept by itself, knew how to raise a
see-you-later hand. But skin felt
it was never seen, never known as
a land on the map, nose like a city,
hip like a city, gleaming dome of the mosque
and the hundred corridors of cinnamon and rope.
Skin had hope, that's what skin does.
Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.
Love means you breathe in two countries.
And skin remembers--silk, spiny grass,
deep in the pocket that is skin's secret own.
Even now, when skin is not alone,
it remembers being alone and thanks something larger
that there are travelers, that people go places
larger than themselves.
**********
Breaking the Fast
By Naomi Shihab Nye
1.
Japanese teacher says:
At first light, rise.
Don’t hover between
sleep and waking,
this makes you heavy,
puts a stone inside your heart.
The minute you drift back to shore,
anchor. Breathe.
Remember your deepest name.
2.
Sometimes objects stun me,
bamboo strainer, gray mug,
sitting exactly where
they were left.
They have not slept
or dreamt of lost faces.
I touch them carefully,
saying, tell me what you know.
3.
Cup of waves,
strawberry balanced
in a seashell.
In morning the water seems
clear to the bottom.
No fish blocks my view.
**********
Valentine For Ernest Mann
By Naomi Shihab Nye
You can’t order a poem like you order a taco.
Walk up to the counter, say, “I’ll take two”
and expect it to be handed back to you
on a shiny plate.
Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, “Here’s my address,
write me a poem,” deserves something in reply.
So I’ll tell you a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.
Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn’t understand why she was crying.
“I thought they had such beautiful eyes.”
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he re-invented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.
Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the odd sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.
And let me know.
**********
The List
By Naomi Shihab Nye
A man told me he had calculated
the exact number of books
he would be able to read before he died
by figuring the average number
of books he read per month
and his probable earth span,
(averaging how long
his dad and grandpa had lived,
adding on a few years since he
exercised more than they did).
Then he made a list of necessary books,
nonfiction mostly, history, philosophy,
fiction, and poetry from different time periods
so there wouldn’t be large gaps in his mind.
He had given up frivolous reading entirely.
There are only so many days.
Oh, I felt sad to hear such an organized plan.
What about the books that aren’t written yet,
the books his friends might recommend
that aren’t on the list,
the yummy magazine that might fall
into his hand at a silly moment after all?
What about the mystery search
through the delectable library shelves?
I felt the heartbeat of forgotten precious books
calling for his hand.
**********
Genetics
By Naomi Shihab Nye
From my father I inherited the ability
to stand in a field and stare.
Look, look at that gray dot by the fence.
It’s his donkey. My father doesn’t have
a deep interest in donkeys, more a figurative one.
To know it’s out there nuzzling the ground.
That’s how I feel about my life.
I like to skirt the edges. There it is in the field.
Feeding itself.
*
From my mother, an obsession about the stove
and correct spelling. The red stove, old as I am, must be
polished at all times. You don’t know this about me.
I do it when you’re not home.
The Magic Chef gleams in his tipped hat.
Oven shoots to 500 when you set it low.
Then fluctuates. Like a personality.
Thanks to my mother I now have an oven thermometer
but must open the oven door to check it.
Even when a cake’s in there. Isn’t that supposed to be
disaster for a cake?
My mother does crosswords, which I will never do.
But a word spelled wrongly anywhere
prickles my skin. Return to beginning
with pencil, black ink.
Cross you at the “a.” Rearrange.
We had family discussions
about a preference for the British grey.
In the spelling bee I tripped on reveille,
a bugle call, a signal at dawn.
I have risen early
ever since.
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