With National Poetry Month about to end, I thought we should post a tribute to it. Many here write and/or enjoy poetry.

Last night, as I was driving home from Wisconsin, I heard this poem by Maya Angelou:

On Aging

When you see me sitting quietly,
Like a sack left on the shelf,
Don't think I need your chattering.
I'm listing to myself.
Hold! Stop! Don't pity me!
Hold! Stop your sympathy!
Understanding if you got it,
Otherwise I'll so without it!

When my bones are stiff and aching,
and my feet won't climb the stair,
I will only ask one favor:
Don't bring me no rocking chair.

When you see me walking, stumbling,
Don't study and get it wrong.
'Cause tired don't mean lazy
And every goodbye ain't gone.
I'm the same person I was back then,
A little less hair, a little less chin,
A lot less lungs and much less wind.
But ain't I lucky I can still breathe in.

- Maya Angelou

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

FATE OF MY OWN HATE....

I hate you so much I swear,
Wherever i go you are always there.
I hate you so much, I say it eveyday,
I cant stand you but you never go away.
I hate you for a reason, because you are yourself,
Cant you just change and be somebody else?
I hate you so much that its giving me pain,
I hate you so much that Im going insane.
You make me cry causing sleepless nights,
The thought of you brings tears to my eyes.
Somebody please save me from this,
Because I am going crazy with it.
But no one can save me from this hatred in my heart,
I wanna die and you were the reason from the start.
Whenever i have something you simply turn it to nothing.
This is so bad that i am so sad.
Why do I have to go through this?
Why do i have top suffer from this s h i t?
I dont know so i cut myself and now i bleed,
Its your fault, its all been you,
But i cant escape you no matter what i do.
I want to kill you, thats all that i want,
And it seems thats the only option that i have got.
But its more then that and its so hard to do,
Because even when youre dead i wont escape from you.
You see, its just life and cruel fate,
That i myself am the face of my own hate.

Oh...how sad. I hope that's just fiction.

The last resort of a writer with writers' block is to write about writing. Or write poems about writing poems.

That said , I do rather like this pair, written in about half an hour at one of my writers' gorup meetings.

Writing a Poem About Victory

I am trying to write me a poem
About victory and triumph: success
Themes that will stir men to glory
And deeds that are sure to impress.
I am trying to write me a poem
But it’s proving much harder, in fact,
Than I ever considered it ought to.
It’s rather a troublesome tract.
We’d agreed that we wouldn’t consider
Any reference to games or to sport
But that ought to leave plenty of scope for
Victories of some other sort.
But I’m finding that I can’t decide
What kind of triumph it should be
A grand folly of battle in wartime perhaps
Or a child who knows his ABC?
A WI competition
For the best Bakewell tart at the fair.
A good score in the quiz at the pub,
When half of the team isn’t there.
Well it seems all things considered
My victory can be understood
To be in concluding this poem
When I thought that I never would.

Writing a Poem About Defeat

Well I’m trying to write me a poem.

Continuing the theme into May, here's one of my favorite poets at his pithy best:

MY PAPA'S WALTZ
by Theodore Roethke (1908 - 1963)


The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.